


Aggressive Negotiations

by random_chick, Shadowcat



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-08
Updated: 2011-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-23 13:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 14
Words: 30,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/250658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/random_chick/pseuds/random_chick, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Shadowcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Danielle Moonstar was raised by Magneto and his Brotherhood and became a member of the MLF at a young age. She met and fell in love with Mikhail Sorokin. But the course of true love never does run smooth and when Dani dies as the result of a mission gone wrong, Mikhail is left to pick up the pieces of his life. Five years pass and Mikhail learns that things are not as they have always seemed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for AU_BigBang 2011.

Mikhail knew he didn't have much room to complain about the young age of the latest team member under his command -- he was young himself, to be a leader -- but he privately thought that fifteen was pushing it a little. More than a little, actually.

Oh, she was good, there was no denying that. Almost _too_ good, which was something that made him suspicious. But his bosses thought she was a perfect fit for them, and for his team in particular, so he didn't have much of a choice. He'd expressed his concerns, they'd placed Dani with him anyway, and he just had to friggin' deal with it.

But that didn't mean he had to like it, and it didn't mean he had to make her life easy. Oh, he wasn't being mean or cruel to her. He wasn't that low. At the same time, though, he wasn't being nice to her, either. And he wouldn't be, not until he knew the higher ups had made the right decision in putting her on his team, because what they were working for was too important to be risked by a teenage girl who had yet to prove herself.

Mikhail Sorokin was a harsh taskmaster, but that was what made him a damn good leader. He didn't push his team any harder than he was willing to push himself.

Unfortunately, that meant he pushed his team damn hard.

For her part, Danielle Moonstar didn't give a damn what Mikhail Sorokin thought of her or her age. She might be only fifteen, but she had seen and done things that most people twice her age had never thought about.

Then again, she had also been raised by the most notorious mutant known to the public since she was an infant. She was good at her job -- and even better with her powers. When Mikhail tried riding her harder than she thought was acceptable, she just did what she was supposed to -- and then smirked when she did more than he expected. If he expected her to be intimidated by him or frightened away from his team, he would have to think again.

Mikhail Sorokin's team was the best in the organization, and that was exactly why she had been placed with them.

He would just have to get used to it. Or he could go to hell. Dani really didn't care which one he chose.

He was rapidly getting used to it, though. Or at least amused by her tenacity. Either way, it was a good thing.

He caught sight of her in the hallway and quickened his pace to catch up with her. "Hey, kid."

He called everybody kid if they were younger than him, though. It wasn't anything personal. He was a little better than cheap shots at her age. Not much, necessarily, but a little.

Hearing him, Dani turned around to look at him with one eyebrow raised in question. She didn't waste time on words unless she needed to.

"Got plans right now?"

She shook her head. She didn't. She had already called her family to update them on her progress so she had the rest of the night free. "No. I was just going to go outside for a bit."

"Want some company?" he offered.

She gave him a confused look. "Why? You hate me."

"I don't hate you, kid. Don't know if I want you here, but I don't hate you."

"Why don't you want me here?" It was a question she had wanted to ask, even if she really didn't care about the answer.

"I care too much about this team to see it risked on a teenage girl. It's why I push you. If you're going to be here, you're going to be good." Well, at least he was being honest.

She laughed humorlessly. "Teenage girl? That's how you see me?" She shook her head. "Listen, Concussion, I was placed here because I was trained in my powers and in combat by the best people. I was never, ever, treated or referred to as a child or a teenage girl. Your team is the best, and so I was the perfect fit. If you have a problem with that, then you can take it up with your superiors who were _allowed_ to recruit me from my previous position in the first place."

"You're a teenager and you're a girl. Hence, teenage girl. And arguing with my superiors would get me nowhere, anyway. They may like me but they don't like me _that_ much." And he knew when something was an exercise in futility.

"Let's try a strong shot of honesty between us, all right? I'm here because I'm the best at what I do. You're the best at what you do and the team is the best because of your leadership. However, you and your team lack the finesse of planning and strategy. Sometimes you can't start off a mission by immediately blowing things up. Sometimes you have to use mind games or distraction." She brought her hand up to his side and there was a glowing crossbow with a bolt aimed at his temple. "If I fire this at any part of you, then you will see hallucinations of your greatest fear -- or your greatest desire. It depends on my mood and what will best allow me to fulfill my mission. Thus, you are removed as a threat for the next few minutes or hours while I do what I was hired to do." She smiled tightly. "It's only one of the weapons that I have at my disposal. I was trained by my adopted father since I was a child, Mikhail. I know all about planning finesse and strategy and about being a weapon."

"You shouldn't have had to be a weapon so young." There was an unexpected gentleness to his voice.

She shrugged, vanishing the crossbow. "It is what it is."

"I'm... sorry," he said finally. "I know I'm not being fair to you. I don't mean to be unfair to you, but... my team's my team. I'm protective."

"I get that. But do you think that your superiors would have been allowed to recruit me from Magneto if he didn't know that I was the best fit for your team?"

"I just... I don't like the idea that I don't know what's best for my team."

Dani sighed. "I'm here to be an asset, Mikhail. Why don't you utilize what I can do instead of being hung up on the fact that I'm younger than the rest of you?" She gave him a small smile. "Or, you can be the one to tell my adopted father that you don't want me here."

"I'm stubborn, not insane," was his instant reply.

She grinned. "Magneto says the two are not so different at times."

"Yes, well, in this case... I'm whichever one won't get me badly hurt by him." Mikhail looked at her for a moment. "How about we start over? Go take that walk outside, get to know each other a little."

"Erring on the side of caution is usually best with him," she agreed. She gave him a long look and then nodded. "Sure. We can do that."

He gave her a faint smile as they headed down the hallway. "So, why _were_ you allowed to be recruited?" he asked curiously as they reached the door and he held it open for her.

"Because Magneto decided that I could better serve the cause as a member of the MLF than if I were to stay with the Brotherhood."

"What's that like, anyway?" he asked. "Being his kid."

She shrugged. "Not as bad as everyone would like to make it out to be. He pushed me harder because I _am_ his kid. Of course, that means that he would rain even more hell down on people when I would get hurt." She looked at him. "There's a difference between the Magneto who scares the hell out of everyone and the Magneto who adopted me when I was a baby. I can differentiate between the man that loves me as his daughter and the man who has trained me to be a deadly force to be reckoned with."

"That's... strange," he said, shaking his head. "It's hard to imagine him as a loving father." He looked at her. "But if you say he was, then he was. All the same, I'll stick with my healthy fear of the man."

"He very much is," Dani said quietly as they walked. "It's probably a good thing for all concerned if you keep a healthy fear of him. Just don't ever assume that it's because of who my father is that I'm here. They came to him and not the other way around."

"That's one thing I never thought," he assured her. "I may have thought they were crazy for bringing such a young teenager onboard, but I never thought you were here just because of your father."

Again, points for honesty, at least.

"I'm here because I earned my place here," she said quietly. "I've worked my ass off to advance. I wanted this assignment because your team is the best the MLF has and I wanted to be with the best."

He quirked a smile. "Then how about we try and start over? Well, I try and start over," he amended, stopping and holding a hand out to her.

She gazed at him for a long moment and then placed her hand in his.


	2. Chapter 2

God, her hand was soft. _No, Mikhail, don't notice things like this. She's fifteen!_ But that? So wasn't stopping him from noticing how soft her skin was or how beautiful she was.

She was also noticing how nice his hand felt holding hers. Looking at him through her lashes she was also struck by just how handsome of a man Mikhail was. It had been something she had been too busy and too annoyed to notice fully before.

"So..." he said, pulling his hand away reluctantly. "Tell me about yourself. Not your powers or your reasons for being here. Don't tell me about Dani the mutant, tell me about Dani the girl."

"Danielle Moonstar, called Dani or Moonstar. I have a passion for horses, motorcycles, leather, and weapons. I write in my spare time and sing... mostly badly from what I am told."

"Half of that sounds like me," he said with a faint smile. "So look at that, something to bond over."

She smiled. "What half isn't you?"

"The horses and the writing. And sort of the singing," he said. "I don't sing much, but I have a decent enough voice when I do."

"But you're into leather, weapons, and motorcycles?"

"Uh-huh." He nodded.

"Sounds like the start of a friendship right there."

He grinned. "I like the sound of that." Friendships had been built on less, after all.

"And I can teach you to appreciate horses."

"Can't promise it'll work, but I'm willing to give it a shot."

"They're much easier to understand than people," she murmured as she walked. "They never willingly want to hurt you for being something they're not."

"No wonder you like them, then."

She nodded. "Mutant or human, we're the same to them as long as we treat them right. All animals are like that, but horses have this power..." She looked down at the ground, biting her lip. "Horses have always been important to my people."

"How so?" he asked curiously.

"The Cheyenne have always had a spiritual tie with their horses."

"What kind of spiritual tie?" Probably a stupid question, but he was legitimately curious. And it showed that he was at least making an effort.

She bit her lip. "You'll laugh," she said, looking away.

"I won't," he said solemnly. "I promise."

"Spirits of fallen Cheyenne warriors are said to come back as horses, so my people always have a link with our ancestors, and it was the spirit of the horse that helped our people through harsh times very long ago," she explained. "They're very sacred to us."

"Why would I laugh at that? That's a beautiful thing."

"Most people that aren't Cheyenne do," she said with a shrug. "Magneto doesn't, but he understands."

"I can't say I understand it, necessarily," Mikhail allowed. "But it's a beautiful idea."

"At least you can see the beauty in something you don't fully understand."

"I try, anyway." He looked at her as they walked. "But even if I didn't, I wouldn't laugh at it. I'm not going to laugh at any of my teammates for something they believe in."

"Because you might end up on the wrong end of a weapon?" She was smiling when she asked him that.

"I've ended up on the wrong end of a weapon for less, let's put it that way."

She nodded. "It's not a good thing to upset the people you're working with when they could one day be the ones holding your life in their hands."

"And my teammates can be ridiculously scary in all the bad ways."

She was quiet as she thought about that. "But you don't want your team to follow you out of fear. You want them to continue to respect you. Fear only gets you so far and it can be a double-edged sword if wielded by the wrong hand."

"Exactly," he said with a nod. "I want them to know that there are definitely times they _should_ be afraid of me, but I don't want them to _always_ be afraid of me. Not to mention, they won't listen to me if they're afraid of me."

"They'll find ways to undermine you."

"And I can't have that."

"Once your people try to undermine you, your control starts slipping in other areas, too, and that could be dangerous." Someone was talking like she had seen it happen before.

"Yes, it could," he agreed, impulsively wrapping an arm around her shoulders.

It was unclear if she was more surprised by that -- or the fact that she leaned into him when he did.

He smiled and hugged her lightly against him. "Look at this, us getting along."

She laughed. "I'm easy to get along with." Well, sometimes.

Mikhail just snorted.

"Hey. I am. I just get very focused sometimes." She eyed him. "Besides, you didn't exactly make being around you easy these last few months."

"Not like you made it easy to be around you, either," he countered.

"I thought you hated me. I get defensive."

"Well, I don't hate you," he said, hugging her against him again before pulling away.

She gave him a small smile when he let her go. "I'm learning that."

"Hey, I'll do whatever it takes to prove it."

She smiled, ducking her head again to watch the ground. "So, you have my story. How did you get here?"

"Started when I was a kid. When I was a teenager I nearly killed my mother and baby sister with my powers."

"Ouch. I'm sorry."

"Blew the nursery wall out. Thankfully they were fine, but it was the start of things. Dad realized he had to do something about my powers. And he was at his wits' end, between that and his colleagues being less than accepting of his son being a mutant... because mind you, this was Russia ten years ago."

"Sounds like you would have been perfect for my dad to find you and rescue you," she mused. "He had the same problems when he was that age."

"Struck out on my own after that," Mikhail said with a shrug. "That's how I wound up with the MLF."

"I'm sorry you were alone." There was real empathy in her voice.

"It wasn't always so bad," Mikhail said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders again without really thinking about it. "First few years were kind of rough, but then when I was twenty, the MLF came into my life and it started working out."

"I'm glad it did and I'm glad you're here." She wrapped an arm around his waist.

"I'm glad I'm here, too," he said with a smile.

"See, something we agree on."

"Hopefully we find more than just that."

She was quiet for a long moment. "I would like that."

"Well... we're both glad I'm here and we both agree your people's connection to horses is beautiful. So two things, right there."

"It's a good start to a friendship."

"Friends, huh?" He looked at her thoughtfully. "I'd like that."

"Me, too. I don't have a lot of those."

"Neither do I."

"You have me."

"And ten minutes ago, you hated me."

"No," she said firmly. "Upset at you, but not hatred. Never hatred."

"Severely disliked, then," he amended.

"Still wrong. Worried."

"Worried?"

She nodded. "You're the leader and if you refused to accept me here..."

"It would've made things bad for you."

"I would have been stubborn, though."

"You? Stubborn? No way," he teased.

She laughed softly.

"I think that's another reason we didn't get along at first," he said. "We're both pretty stubborn."

"I was determined to stick it out even if you didn't accept me," Dani said. "I couldn't allow you to run me off."

"Don't ever let anyone run you off," Mikhail said. "From anything in life."

"I don't. I never have."

"Time changes people, though. Don't let that be one of the ways it changes you."

She smirked and stepped to walk in front of him. Well, she was walking backwards in front of him. "Do you really think that I'm the kind of person that would ever let anyone run her off?"

"No, but few people know what the future holds," Mikhail said. "Be open to the possibility of it happening, even if it's one you don't like."

She shook her head. "No. Because I can never allow that to happen to me."

"Danielle," he said gently. "Life doesn't always do what we want it to do. I just want you to realize that you never know what's going to happen until it happens."

"Mikhail, I don't think you understand." She looked at him, her eyes serious. "It's not a choice I have. It's the cold hard facts."

"Why can't you, then?"

She looked at him. "Do you really need me to answer that?"

"No, but I'd still like to hear you say it." He shrugged. "Don't have to, though."

"It's not because of Magneto." She sighed. "Well, not completely," she amended honestly. "I'm a mutant and a woman, Mikhail. We're fighting a war against people who want to bag us and tag us. If I were to let myself be run off of anything... that would make me a victim and a target. I'm not a victim."

"If you ever have to run, you've got me at your back," he said. "You're part of my team and I protect my teammates... even the ones it takes me a while to warm up to."

She tilted her head, something filling her eyes before she turned around to walk with her back to him for a moment. "If I ever have to run, I'll already be dead. I don't run from a fight."

He reached out to touch her shoulder. "I'm just trying to help."

"I know. But when you're Magneto's daughter, running is not an option. I won't make him ashamed of me."

"If he's any kind of a decent father, he could never be ashamed of you."

She turned her head to look at him. "If I fail him, he will be."

Mikhail had a few words to say about that but he held them back. Instead he did something that could probably be considered anything from brain-breakingly stupid to outright suicidal.

He pulled Dani into his arms for a hug.

Dani stayed stiff for a moment in shock, then hesitantly hugged him back.

He suddenly didn't want to let her go. He did anyway, though. "Sorry," he said apologetically. "My little sister solves everything with hugs and I guess it rubbed off on me."

"It's not a bad thing to have picked up on."

"But still, it wasn't right to just hug you like that."

"I didn't mind. I just was surprised."

"Want another hug?" he asked with a teasing grin.

She surprised herself with her answer. "Yes."

He pulled her close and hugged her again, just holding her.

She leaned against him. This felt so right in ways she couldn't put into words right now.

"I like this," he said, smiling to himself and absent-mindedly pressing a kiss to the top of her head.

"It feels nice."

"Yeah, it does."

"Is it going to hurt your reputation to be seen hugging me?"

"You really think I care?"

She snorted in response. "Highly doubtful."

"So I'm perfectly content to keep holding you. Besides, everybody needs hugs sometimes."

"It's been a long time... and why am I unable not to say embarrassing shit right now?"

"Because the universe likes fucking with us like that." He laughed. "If it helps any, I've got something embarrassing that I'm tempted to say."

"Oh really?"

"Yep."

"Are you going to?"

"I'm not big on humiliation, so no."

"I told you."

"Promise you won't laugh? Much, anyway?"

"I promise I won't laugh very much," she said solemnly.

"I want to kiss you."

"Why would I laugh about that?"

"Because I'm ten years older than you."

"So?"

"It doesn't seem a little... pathetic?"

"No. If you won't laugh, I'll tell you something even more embarrassing than the hug thing."

"Won't laugh," he promised.

"I've wondered how kissing you would feel since the first time we yelled at each other." She looked away.

"How did the yelling result in you wondering that?"

She sighed. "Because you're fucking hot."

"Yeah, I kinda am, aren't I?"

"And oh so modest."

"Screw modesty."

Dani laughed in delight.

"Hey, no laughing."

"I like that you don't pretend."

"There's no point in pretending."

"Good. It's refreshing."

"Unfortunately, it also doesn't change the fact that I want to kiss you."

"So do it, already."

He tipped her head up, leaned down, and kissed her deeply. It didn't quite have the finesse of all the times he'd imagined kissing her, but even so.

Dani melted beneath his kiss for a moment before she was kissing him back just as deeply.

Mikhail whimpered slightly and nipped at her lower lip.

Dani responded by wrapping one of her arms around his neck.


	3. Chapter 3

He found the nearest wall and pushed her up against it as they kissed.

Dani was very much enjoying this and she pulled him closer to her, her free hand making a fist in his shirt.

Mikhail was busy trying to slip a hand under Dani's shirt. He had no shame sometimes, absolutely none.

Dani let him, moving against him as they kissed.

He slid his hand up to cup a breast through her bra. "God, I shouldn't be doing this," he mumbled against her lips. "We're outside. We could get caught." Note that this wasn't actually stopping him.

"Your room? Closer."

He pulled away breathlessly. "Let's go."

She nodded, all too happy to follow him.

It was a matter of minutes before they were in his room, with him shoving the door shut and pulling her into his arms, his hands tugging impatiently at her shirt as they kissed.

Dani made sure the door was securely locked before she was tugging just as impatiently at his shirt.

He pulled away long enough to shrug his shirt off and toss it aside before he was tugging hers up again.

She helped him get her shirt off and then one of her hands was inside his pants.

He gasped in surprise. "What are you doing?"

"Putting my hand down your pants." Because that should have been obvious.

"You better be planning on using that hand."

"Oh, I plan to. I wouldn't just tease you."

"In that case, feel free to keep your hand in there for a while." For his part, he'd slipped his fingers inside one of the cups of her bra.

She undid his pants so she had more room to work and curled her hand around him. "Fuck," she hissed when she felt his fingers against her breast.

He found her nipple quickly, tweaking it with two fingers. At the same time, he bucked against her hand.

She shuddered, and in response she started stroking along his cock with sure, long movements of her hand.

"Oh, shit," he hissed, bucking against her hand again. "That feels good."

"I should hope so since that's the reason I'm doing it."

He laughed throatily, kneading her breast gently and ducking his head to kiss her.

She nipped at his lip and kissed him in return, continuing to squeeze him every few seconds with a gentle motion.

He moaned into the kiss, sucking her lower lip into his mouth.

She reached up with her free hand to run her fingers along the back of his neck.

"I like that," he whispered.

"I like touching you," she said in wonder. She had never enjoyed touching someone so much.

"You sound surprised. Am I really that unappealing?" he teased.

"No," she murmured. "I just... I never wanted to be as close to anyone like this before. I've bloodied men for doing less. But this... with you... it's like I'm being lit on fire."

"Glad to have changed your mind," he said with a grin, nipping sharply at her lip.

"Glad you wanted me to have my mind changed." She made a soft growling noise when he nipped her and she squeezed him a little more firmly.

He groaned and bucked against her hand. "Damn clothing still in the way."

She moved her free hand down to his zipper and started to undo it so they could get them off of him.

Mikhail grinned at her, wriggling out of his jeans and underwear as Dani pushed them down.

Dani's eyes widened as she ran her gaze over him and then she smiled. Mikhail was built and he was very well-endowed. She stroked him again, running the nails of her other hand along his abdomen.

He inhaled sharply when she did that.

"I like touching you and you look even better with your clothes off than I imagined."

He grinned. "You imagined it, huh?"

"Of course I did. I have eyes, you know."

"Wasn't aware you were in the habit of fantasizing about people you disliked." He bucked against her hand.

"Imagining you without clothes and fantasizing about you are two completely different things," she pointed out tartly as she squeezed him a little more.

He gasped. "So this is hate groping, then?" he managed to tease.

"Behave or I'll stop," she warned, lengthening her strokes.

"I'll be good." Not that he wanted to be, but he'd do whatever it took at the moment to keep her hands on him.

She leaned up to kiss him. "Good choice."

He returned the kiss fiercely. "I think you're overdressed, by the way."

"You think? I'm kind of busy here, so you might have to take care of that for us both." Dani's smile was wicked as she stopped stroking him for a moment, her hand hovering above him.

He took advantage of that pause to unclasp her bra and slide it down her arms.

She shook the material off of her and started running her fingers very lightly along his skin.

He shivered at her touch, his hands working on her jeans now.

Dani pressed closer to him, tilting her head up to kiss along his neck.

He moaned softly, shoving her jeans and underwear down.

She stepped out of them, kicking them to the side before she smiled up at him again.

"Oh, you are beautiful," he whispered, looking at her eagerly.

She tugged at him gently, before she let go so that she could wrap both arms around his neck and kiss him.

He wrapped one arm around her waist, holding her close and returning the kiss. As they kissed, he backed slowly towards his bed.

Dani was more than happy to let him get them to his bed as she was busy exploring his mouth with her tongue.

Mikhail backed up against the bed and let himself fall, pulling Dani with him.

She braced herself so that she wouldn't hurt him when she landed on his chest.

He rolled them over, pinning her beneath him and kissing her roughly.

Dani growled in her throat, tugging at his hair as she tried to get him closer to her.

Part of his brain was screaming at him that this was stupid and illegal, but the rest of his brain was telling that part to shut the hell up.

Dani had never been one to pay too much attention to laws or to rules... and right now she really wanted Mikhail.

Mikhail nudged her legs apart, settling between them and pressing against her entrance impatiently.

"Mikhail," she whispered. There was want and a hint of demand in her voice.

He pushed forward, entering her slowly.

She sucked in her breath at the small flash of pain and she bit down on his shoulder gently. It didn't take long for that pain to go away and she whimpered quietly, moving against him.

He wasn't an idiot; he knew what that sharp inhalation meant. The bite to his shoulder only confirmed it. But just when he was about to apologize, she started moving against him and all thoughts of apology went out of his head.

"Mikhail..."

"Yes?"

"Please." She wasn't sure exactly what she was trying to put into words, just that she really needed to feel him move.

He kissed her gently as he moved, thrusting gently. "You feel amazing."

"You do." She nodded in agreement, her hands starting to move along the skin of his back. "Feels wonderful."

"Thought about this," Mikhail admitted. "Never imagined it'd happen."

"So glad it is," she said softly, arching her hips up to take him in deeper. "Wanted you. Didn't think you'd want me."

"I'm sorry if it hurts." That was the only apology he made, though. He was too busy gripping one hip as his thrusts picked up a little speed.

"No, it doesn't," she assured him. "You... it doesn't hurt."

"If it does, tell me."

She laughed softly. "Oh, if you're hurting me and it's not enjoyable, you'll know."

"Yeah, but it's still one of those things I gotta say."

She butted her head lightly against his before kissing him roughly.

He groaned into the kiss. "You feel fucking amazing, Dani."

"I'm so glad. So glad you walked with me."

"I'm just glad you didn't punch me when I hugged you."

"Hard to think about punching you when I just wanted to see what you looked like without your shirt."

"Well, now you know," he teased.

She grinned. "I know a lot more now than just what you look like without a shirt."

"And you like what you see, too." He thrust harder as he said it.

"Yes, gods yes!"

He thrust again, with that same force behind it. He wasn't used to having to be careful, wasn't used to having to test it out and see if what he liked was what the other person might like, but he wouldn't have this any other way.

It took Dani only moments to realize that she liked bucking up against Mikhail when he thrust hard like that. It also didn't take her long to realize that her body was beginning to feel like every nerve was being lit on fire.

"Oh, you like that, huh?" He grinned at her before kissing her fiercely.

She whimpered into his mouth, her nails digging into his shoulders as her body started to arch up against him a little faster.

He forced himself to keep the thrusts at the level they were at. It was her first time. He couldn't let go the way he wanted to. Shame, really. He kind of liked the idea of just going at her.

If she had her way, they were definitely going to be doing this again.

"God, Dani," he managed to gasp. "Just... God!"

There were lots of things Dani would have said if she hadn't started seeing little sparkles of light exploding in her vision.

For his part, Mikhail was entirely focused on Dani and all those interesting little sounds she was making. They were good sounds. He liked those sounds.

She didn't want to embarrass herself by telling him she was having a hard time with everything she was suddenly feeling and like she was on the edge of exploding. She was pretty sure that no guy wanted to hear that the girl he had just had sex with had been a virgin and was fighting against her first orgasm because it was so intense.

Mikhail wouldn't have minded hearing it, though. But he wouldn't have pushed her to say it. Why push her to say anything, when it was so much more fun for both of them for him to thrust steadily faster in an attempt to push her over the edge?

"Mikhail..." She whispered, her body starting to shudder against him. "Mikhail!"

"That's it," he murmured encouragingly. "That's it, Dani. Let yourself go."

"I don't know..." She bucked against him. "I've never... "

"I promise you, this is exactly how you should be feeling."

"Don't know how to let go," she finally confessed, wrapping her legs around his as she arched up against him again.

"Then let me show you." He thrust harder, kissing her fiercely. "Just stick with me."

She nodded, kissing him hard as she let him direct her body with his.

He let himself go a little, not thrusting as hard as he wanted to but definitely thrusting harder than he had been. At the same time, the speed of his thrusts became very slow and very, very deliberate.

Dani whimpered, squirming up against him as the sensations and fire she was feeling continued to build within her.

"That's my girl," he whispered as he thrust. "That's my girl."

"Mikhail," she whimpered. "So intense... like fire and lightning."

"You don't need to be afraid," he said softly. "I promise, you don't need to be afraid."

She was too full of nerves and sensation to wonder how he knew that she was a bit _concerned_ , not scared, about what was happening to her body right now. All she knew was that there were so many things she was feeling and each time Mikhail moved, she felt more build up.

"Come for me, Danielle," he whispered. "You're so close. You can feel it. I can feel it."

"Mikhail..." She whimpered, pulling him closer to her as she bucked up against his body. There was something about him calling her Danielle in a voice like that made her tremble all over.

"That's it, baby girl," he whispered, pressing against her. "That's it."

She mewled softly in her throat and when he pressed against her one more time, she shouted something in another language and bucked against Mikhail as everything in her seemed to explode all at once and she felt herself come for the first time ever.

Mikhail came right after she did, with a murmur of something in Russian and then a gasp of her name.

Dani couldn't speak for a few moments because she hadn't been prepared for how that was going to feel.

"Are you all right?" he asked, concerned. "I didn't hurt you, did I?" Because if he had, he might as well just start planning to live in a plastic bubble right then and be done with it.

"Hurt me?" She asked in confusion. "Not hurt. Tiny explosions everywhere."

"That's what a really good orgasm will do to you."

"First one," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"Very first? You've never given yourself one?"

She shook her head.

"Wow." He shifted onto his side, leaning in to kiss her gently. "I'm honored, then."


	4. Chapter 4

She turned her face to him so that she could enjoy the kiss.

"It wasn't too skeevy having your first time be with a guy ten years older than you, was it?" He just wanted to make sure.

"No," she said firmly. "It was perfect."

"Good." He kissed her again. "Because I don't like the idea of weirding you out." He wasn't quite sure when his feelings towards her had shifted from annoyance and dislike to bemused tolerance and then from that to whatever he felt now... but they had.

"Nothing about what just happened between us was weird at all."

"No, it wasn't," he agreed. "It was amazing. And really fucking hot."

She nodded and then reached her hand to run it lightly against his back. "I loved it."

He shivered. "I'm glad it wasn't hate sex, though," he said. "Because then it'd be hot but we'd feel miserable later."

"Hate sex? Why would you have sex with someone you hated?"

"It's about passion and control and getting lost in the moment. I didn't say it was a good thing."

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Why can't you do that with someone you like instead?"

"It's better that way, yeah."

"Because even with someone you like or love, it could still be about control and passion and losing yourself in the moment with them."

"Like it was with us."

"Yes, exactly."

"It'll be even better next time," he promised.

"It gets better than what just happened?"

"Oh, it gets _much_ better." He grinned at her.

"I am so looking forward to it."

"Me, too. Oh, yes. Me, too."

She grinned, rolling over so that she could look at him. "That was my first time."

"I figured as much," he said gently.

She sighed, gliding her hand along his chest idly. "That obvious, huh?"

"The inhalation when I entered you, the way you bit my shoulder... yeah, kinda clued me in."

"Damn it," she muttered, flopping down onto her back. "I was hoping that you wouldn't notice."

"Hey, did it really seem like I minded?" he asked gently.

"No..." She said slowly. "I just didn't want to come off as some idiot who didn't know anything."

"Oh, you knew plenty," he said with a grin.

"The way you made me feel, Mikhail... it was like everything was exploding around me and I was part of the explosions."

"I'm just glad I didn't lose control and break the bed or something," he said, laughing softly. "Which has happened. Explaining why you've broken a bed with a concussive blast is not nearly as funny as it sounds."

She was too busy giggling to respond at first. "I bet it was fun until then."

"Yeah, that was a pretty good time."

"Then it is a good story if you had a good time."

"I had a great time." He kissed her lightly. "But I had an even better time now."

"I'm glad that you weren't disappointed."

"I don't think you could ever disappoint me."

"I'll keep that in mind."

He deepened the kiss slightly. "You're amazing, Danielle. That's only going to develop the more we're together."

"So, you do want to be with me again after this?"

"Damn right I do."

"Good." She was quiet and thoughtful for a moment. "We have to keep it secret, don't we, because I'm legally underage and the team would give you shit." Not to mention that she might get reassigned.

"We do. At least until you're old enough. If we last that long, that is."

"Yeah, I could end up dying tomorrow."

"No, I meant if you and I last as two people who are having really great sex and as friends."

"Well, even without the sex, I'd like us to be friends."

"I'd like that, too," he said, kissing her gently. "But I can't lie, I'm liking the sexual aspect of things."

"I'm liking it a lot, too."

"Thank God, otherwise I'd be a dead man."

"Why?"

"If you didn't like it, or if I'd hurt you, I ran the risk of you telling your father. And you can't tell me he wouldn't kill someone who hurt his daughter."

"Do think that I'd tell my father if I had bad sex?"

"No, but you might tell him that the man who deflowered you hurt you."

"NO."

He looked at her, startled.

"It's not my father's business."

There was no denying the relief on his face.

She laughed. "I'll fuck who I want and Magneto won't care."

"Hopefully that's mostly just me." He didn't like the idea of sharing her.

"Just you."

"Just me, as often as you want and wherever you want."

"Here or on a road trip would be safest for awhile. Though, I do have a fake license that says I'm eighteen."

"I like the idea of a road trip," he admitted.

"Could be used as a scouting mission for work."

"So really, everybody would win in that case." His locic was oh so special sometimes.

"And it would give us privacy, too." There was a reason that Dani had been put in charge of more and more of the planning since she was recruited.

"Which would give us more time together than if we had to steal a moment or two." Though if they used it as a scouting mission, obviously that took priority. But still, like he wasn't going to spend at least several hours keeping Dani busy?

"Exactly. We could be able to comfortably blend business with pleasure."

"And oh, there'd be a lot of it. Pleasure, that is." He smirked.

She laughed. "Good thing. All work and no play makes Dani a little volatile."

"And not the good kind of volatile, either."

"Oh no. I have a dangerous temper."

"I know," he said dryly.

"Hey, I haven't gone completely off on you," she protested.

"No, but I've seen you go off on other people," he pointed out.

"But not you."

"Always wondered why that was. Guess now I know."

"That and Reaper is just incredibly stupid."

Mikhail snorted. "Yeah, can't argue there."

She grinned.

"You are easily one of the smartest people on my team."

"I know."

"And not at all modest, either -- my kind of girl."

She laughed. "I was raised by the least modest man I've ever known."

"Yeah, he isn't exactly the kind of guy prone to keeping quiet if you're good at something."

"Not at all," she said with a smile.

"Which isn't necessarily a bad quality."

"No, it's not -- if you can back it up."

"Unfortunately, I think half my team can't. How did I get stuck with the idiots? Even if they _are_ good at their jobs."

"Because they're good at their jobs. I'm here now to help with planning strategies."

"Thank God. Maybe now we'll stop looking like bumbling idiots half the time." Because God, did it frustrate him.

Dani laughed softly. "Well, you will. The others may not."

"No setting them up to look like failures, though. They can do that well enough on their own." All right, his team wasn't quite that bad, but some days it was close.

"I would never think about doing that." Okay, she would, but she wouldn't implement it unless it was necessary.

"Uh-huh, right," he said skeptically.

"I'm here to help your team, Mikhail, not hinder you or it."

"You'd so think about it, though," he countered. "I didn't say you'd _do_ it."

"If they pissed me off or endangered an operation enough, I might _think_ about it," she admitted. "If they did something that was going to be a hazard to the organization as a whole? I might implement it."

"That's what I like about you," he said. "You know when it's time for revenge and when it's time for just a little plotting instead."

She laughed. "I won't do anything that would make you and I look bad, of course."

"Oh, but of course."

She leaned forward to kiss him. "Make us look good and brilliant, on the other hand..."

"I could go for that." He returned the kiss, deepening it just a little bit.

"I have many talents."

"Mm, I just bet you do."

"I read a lot, too," she teased. "And I know Yoga..."

His response was to simply groan quietly.

"And gymnastics. I'm very... flexible." She was also being evil.

"How flexible?" he asked curiously.

She gave him a wicked grin. "Would you really like to know?"

"I don't ask if I don't mean it."

She laughed. "Let me put it this way, I could be giving you a blow job and still be able to wrap my legs around your neck."

Mikhail just groaned at the mental image.

"You did ask."

"I did," he agreed. "Unfortunately, I wasn't expecting the answer to get me hard as a rock."

She ran her hand down to his waist. "Oh I see..."

"Kind of unfortunate, really. And distracting."

"So telling you that I can do very stretchy back bends doesn't help?"

He whimpered softly. "Nope."

"And the splits in two ways?"

He groaned. "You're killing me here."

She leaned in to kiss him lightly. "If I apologize you won't believe me."

"No, I won't," he said, returning the kiss. "Not in the least."

"So, I have a question for you," she said when they took a break in kissing.

"What's that?"

Dani didn't get a chance to respond, because that was when both of their cellphones went off, paging them to the main prep office.

"Damn it," she cursed, rolling away from him and reaching for her clothing.

Mikhail was letting out a stream of Russian epithets as he got dressed. "Ask me anyway?" he asked as they hurriedly fixed their clothing.

"Oh, no. That wouldn't be fair to you," she said. She smiled, slipping out of his room and disappearing down the hall quickly.

Okay, now he was going to be wondering. Damn her.

Shaking his head, he raked his fingers through his hair and left the room.


	5. Chapter 5

Dani was straddling her bike right outside of the target building. Mikhail was inside, setting up the bomb and she was out here, waiting for him so she could give him a ride from the scene. Forearm and Reaper were in other parts of the building, making sure that they had gathered all of the targets in one place so it sent a clear message. That message?

Do not fuck with mutants.

"Oh fuck," she swore as she watched one of the scientists that was _supposed_ to be upstairs come running out of the building and jump into a car.

"One of the targets has escaped and is heading North. I'm on him." She spent only enough time to send out that warning before she gunned her bike and took off after the fleeing man.

Mikhail, for his part, was bolting out of the building and hoping he could catch Dani before she was off-site.

No such luck.

Dani was already long out of sight and closing in on the car. While she was doing that, Wildside came up to Mikhail.

"You guys don't need to worry about him getting away," he said with a manic smile. "I rigged all of their vehicles, too."

That... had not been part of the plans of this mission.

"Damn it, Wildside," Mikhail said. "What if she's close to his vehicle when it goes off? I refuse to lose a team member because you took some initiative."

Wildside looked confused. "Why would Moonstar be close to his vehicle? She's supposed to be right..." He looked around, frowning. "Where is Moonstar, Concussion?" Someone had lost his communicator. Again.

Mikhail resisted the urge to facepalm -- or blast Wildside into a wall. "She took off after him, you idiot. She was out here waiting for me and she saw him run out. She went after him!"

"You have to stop her!" The other man said. "The bomb will explode..."

There was a the sound of an explosion and a large fireball was seen shooting up into the air.

"...any minute."

All reason gone, Mikhail took off towards the explosion. He had to get there, had to see if Dani was all right or not.

And if she wasn't, then Wildside was going to be in a world of hurt.

A flash of light happened in front of Mikhail and a pissed off looking Dani and Locus were suddenly standing on the street. Dani growled, starting for Wildside, but Locus grabbed her.

"Girl, he already ruined your bike, don't destroy the leather, too."

"Moonstar, are you all right?" Mikhail asked, looking at her with barely-hidden worry on his face.

Dani looked at Mikhail and it seemed to take a few extra moments for her eyes to focus. "Concussion. I'll be fine. Sore and a bit bruised, but Locus grabbed me before I ended up like my bike and that car. Why didn't someone tell me the car was rigged to blow?"

"Because Wildside here decided to take some initiative," Mikhail said, a dark expression on his face.

Dani turned to look at Wildside and the other man backed away slightly as the rest of their team joined them. "That was not part of the plan." Her eyes turned dark and her hand fisted as something started to form there, but Locus spoke again.

"Moonstar, don't. You know how Wildside is. If you do anything to his already small mind you might ruin him completely." She tilted her head. "Though, it would be amusing to have him so afraid he was pissing himself."

"It would," Mikhail agreed with a smirk. "I like the way you think."

"I didn't know she was going to go after him," Wildside protested.

"I was the cover, you idiot," Dani hissed as a blade made of her psionic energy appeared in her hand. "I'm the one who makes sure there are no loose ends to be tied up or that can cause trouble for the bosses."

"You should have known better, Wildside," Mikhail said, the dark look on his face intensifying. He was having to resist the urge to nail him with a concussive blast. Having to resist it more than usual, that was.

Tempo watched this for a few moments and then shook her head. "As much as I would love to see the girl go at him, Boss, you don't want her to do this out where there are witnesses. People thinking that there's a breach in the team could spell trouble." She cast a look at Dani and saw how wild her eyes looked. "And I think only by pulling rank will you get her to back off."

Mikhail nodded and moved closer to Dani. "Moonstar, down," he said quietly. "As satisfying as this could be, Tempo's right. This isn't the time or the place for it."

Dani bared her teeth, snarling. It wasn't often that she showed her temper to any member of the team, but she was dancing along the edge to losing control. The problem was that when she lost her temper, it sometimes took a lot to control her or get her calmed down. It was one of the things the people in charge loved about her.

"Moonstar, _down_ ," Mikhail said, taking the risk of reaching out to touch her arm. And on an impulse, he leaned in to whisper in her ear. "Danielle, please."

There was only one time he called her Danielle; maybe the shock of it would break her out of the cold rage.

It did work and Dani jerked her head back in shock, her eyes focusing on him. To everyone else, it looked like Mikhail grabbing her and telling her to stand down was what saved Wildside from a world of pain.

"You all right now?" he asked, his hand lingering on her arm just slightly.

Dani's nod was slow in coming as she re-focused on their surroundings.

Locus sighed. "Come on, I'll get her back to base. She hit really hard when she dove off of her bike. You guys can clean up. It might give her some time to decide not to kill the little shit."

"I'll come see you later," Mikhail whispered in Dani's ear.

She just nodded, not trusting her voice. She didn't say anything as Locus grabbed her and teleported the two of them back to their current base of operations.

Mikhail spun back to face Wildside. "You are lucky I'm not putting you six feet under right now."

"I didn't know she was going to go after him!"

"What did you think she was doing out here, just sitting back and looking pretty?"

"That's her job, you idiot," Forearm growled.

"Do you have any idea what Magneto would do to the lot of us if we got his daughter killed?" Tempo demanded. "You're lucky that Locus was watching her."

"If you _ever_ do something like that without running it by me first, I _will_ put you in the ground, Wildside."

"I was just trying to help," the other man muttered. "I didn't think one of ours would get hurt."

"You need to start thinking more."

"Do you think she'll be okay?" There were a lot of things that could be said about the man, but his loyalty to his team wasn't something that could be questioned without getting bit.

"I think so," Mikhail said. "I hope so. I'm going to check on her when we get back." Nobody would argue with his right to check on an injured teammate.

Tempo tilted her head. "Sirens. Let's get out of here."


	6. Chapter 6

As soon as they were back to their base, Mikhail headed for Dani's room hoping she was in some kind of condition to see him.

Locus was guarding the door, but when she saw him she nodded. "She's in there. She bruised and scraped up pretty good and has a concussion." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Did you know she turned seventeen today? She told the doc when she was sedated so they could take metal out of her shoulder."

Oh, that wasn't a good look.

"I'll have to wish her happy birthday, then."

"Yeah, you should. Apparently no one here knew. Her father called her this morning and told her there was more money in her accounts and a new bike to race. He apparently didn't know I was in the room because he said he loved her and was proud of her. For some reason, it made her sad. Possibly because not even her secret sex toy seemed to know her birthday."

"She's never said anything and I didn't know how to find out." He blinked as the rest of it processed. "How'd you know?"

Because really, lying to Locus wouldn't get him anywhere. At least, not anywhere pleasant.

"I saw you once, sneaking into her room. I stayed close because if you hurt her..." She shrugged. "I'm her friend and I needed to know what level this was at. It's not just about the sex. She's in love with you, Concussion. You break her heart, I'll leave only your head behind."

"I love her, too," Mikhail said softly. "I've loved her since she was fifteen. We just wanted to keep it quiet until she was old enough."

"She's old enough. At least in our world."

"She's old enough now that she's seventeen. And now that she _is_ old enough, I'm not hiding our relationship any longer."

"Then why are you out here? They sedated her."

Mikhail just shook his head, smiling faintly, and let himself into Dani's room.

Dani was laying on her back in her bed. There was a bandage wrapped around her upper arm and her eyes were closed.

He approached the bed and perched on the edge of it, reaching out to take one of her hands in his.

When she felt the bed move, she opened her eyes. "Mikhail?"

"Hello, love." He smiled gently.

"Sssh," she whispered faintly. "Don't want you to get into trouble." Oh yes, someone was clearly sedated.

"Don't care," he said, leaning in to brush his lips against her forehead. "You're old enough now."

"You know what today is? I wasn't going to tell anyone."

"Locus told me." He smiled and squeezed her hand. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

"I think Locus knows about us."

"She does," he said with a nod. "She saw me sneaking into your room one time."

She chewed on her lip. "You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?"

"I don't know." She reached up to his face with her other hand. "Hurt?"

"Am I hurt?" he guessed. "No, I'm fine. I promise."

"Bombs. There shouldn't been cars."

"Wildside took some initiative," Mikhail said, his voice clearly indicating how displeased he still was.

"Could have killed us all," Dani murmured. "I wanted to hurt him for that."

"I had words with him, and I'll probably have more later." He used his free hand to touch her face gently. "Wanted to see how you were doing first."

"Stopped me from killing him."

"Yeah, I did."

"Why?"

"Because we were on a public street. Someone could've seen you."

She winced. "Sorry. So angry. Head hurt and saw red."

"It's okay," he said, trailing a finger down her cheek. "You're safe now and that's the important thing."

"I was afraid, but not for me." She never seemed to be afraid for herself these days.

"You were afraid for everyone else."

She nodded, wincing slightly. "You."

"I love you, Dani," he said softly. "And I love the way you worry about me."

"I love you. When the one bomb went off... I thought others did, too."

Mikhail looked at her for a long moment before stretching out beside her on the bed, wrapping an arm around her waist and snuggling up against her. "They didn't, though. Everyone's safe. I'm safe."

Dani was surprised but pleased, and she curled into him. "Good. Couldn't handle losing you like that."

"You're not going to lose me, babe."

"Promise me you won't ever leave me."

"Why would I leave you?"

"Just promise me, please?"

"I promise," he said, nuzzling the side of her face. "I promise."

"Thank you. I need to know that one person I love isn't going to leave me or hurt me."

"I will never leave you and I will never hurt you."

She nodded, curling against him trustingly. "I know. I love you."

"I'm sorry I didn't know when your birthday was."

"I didn't tell anyone."

"I'm still sorry. I shouldn't known." His lips quirked in a smile. "After all, as Locus put it, I _am_ your secret sex toy."

Her gasp echoed in the room. "She... no... what?"

"Yeah, that's what she called me. She was talking about how your father called for your birthday and it made you sad, probably because not even your secret sex toy knew when your birthday was."

"Killing her, oh yes."

"Why?"

"Best friend prerogative for embarrassing me."

"Why are you embarrassed?"

"You're not a sex toy." She growled.

"Have I told you how sexy you are when you growl?"

"No?"

"Well, you're _very_ sexy when you growl like that. All pissed off and upset at someone."

"You're not a toy."

"No, I'm not. But you know how Locus is."

"That's why she's my best friend," Dani admitted. The two of them were scarily alike sometimes.

"Which is probably why I get along with her as well as I do most of the time."

"She knew about us?"

"Uh-huh. Not sure how long, but she knew."

"And she didn't threaten you?"

"Oh, she threatened me."

She lifted her head to look at him.

"Said if I hurt you, she'd leave only my head behind."

Dani blinked. "She means that."

"Oh, I know she means it."

"I'm sorry she threatened you, Mikhail."

"Don't be. I'm not. I like knowing your friends are loyal to you."

"I have no doubt about the loyalty of Locus or of Tempo." She assured him. "They're protective."

"That's a good thing."

"Yeah, it is. Besides you, I know I could trust them with my life."

"I'm glad you have other people you can trust."

"Because it makes you feel better when we're doing separate jobs." It didn't happen often, but it did happen.

"Exactly," he said with a nod.

"What will happen now, that it becomes public we're together?"

"I'm not sure," he said honestly.

"Are you worried they'll try to reassign us?"

"I'll try not to let them."

"I won't let them take me from you." Her voice was hard.

"If we have to be reassigned, it's a small price to pay for getting to be together."

"But we work really well as a team. They have to see that. It would be stupid to separate us."

"We may have to choose between being teammates and being lovers."

"Lovers."

"That'd be my choice, too."

She nodded, curling into him again.

"But let's not worry about that until we have to," he said, rubbing her back gently with one hand. "Maybe that's a choice we won't have to make."

"Hmm. I hope not."

"Me, too." He sighed. "Because I like the idea of us working together and being together."

"Me, too. Easier to protect each other."

"And an added incentive for protecting each other, too."

She smiled, kissing his chest through his shirt. "Good point."

"Plus I'd like Locus to leave my head attached to my body, thank you."

She laughed groggily.

"Because really, it's kind of hard to do anything when I don't have a head."

She laughed some more. "I'm fairly attached to both of your heads."

"Well, I should certainly hope so."

"I love you, Mikhail."

"I love you, too."

"Stay with me tonight?"

"Of course."

"I need to know you're close by."

"I'll stay right here," he promised.

She nodded, lifting her head up to kiss him.

He returned the kiss gently. "I love you, Danielle," he said softly. "And now, I don't care who knows it."

"I love you so much, Mikhail. I don't care who knows."

"We're not hiding anymore," he promised, kissing her again. "Now that you're old enough, we'll tell everyone. If it comes up, that is."

She moaned softly into his kiss, her hand moving up beneath his shirt. "No more hiding... can hold your hand or kiss you no matter who sees."

He shivered at her touch. "Don't have to jump apart at every sound when we make out in random spots because we can't control ourselves." Which had happened more than occasionally.

She tugged at his shirt. "No more thinking that maybe I should disappear so me loving you doesn't get you into trouble."

He pulled his shirt off and tossed it aside. "No more worrying that you'll get tired of someone older than you and want someone more your age."

Dani couldn't get her shirt by herself because it hurt to move her arm. "That would never happen, Mikhail. Never."

Mikhail kissed her fiercely before trailing kisses along her jawline, his hands working under her shirt.

She busied herself trying to get him out of his pants, making soft growling noises.

"Your shirt first," he murmured, smiling at those little noises.

"Help me, then."

He slid his hands under her shirt again, tugging it up slowly.

Dani got herself as much out of the shirt as she could, and then let Mikhail remove it the rest of the way.

"Beautiful, even when injured," he said with a grin.

"Your pants are in my way."

"Oh, so they are. Sorry about that," he said with an impish grin as he undid his jeans and pushed them and his underwear down.

"You need to wear less clothing," she murmured reaching out to caress him.

"Clothing's kind of required when going out in public."

"You could go commando like I do sometimes. Or wear a thong." Then again, that was easy for her because most of her clothing was leather.

"Sorry, I just went to a happy place there for a second," he said with a grin.

She grinned and pulled him down to her. "Kiss me."

He was only too happy to oblige.

"I love you so fucking much, Mikhail."

"I love you just as much."

She took his hand and placed it between her legs as she leaned up to kiss him.

"Is that an invitation, Danielle?"

"What else would it be?"

"Just making sure," he said with a smirk as his hand slid up her inner thigh.

Her legs shivered already as her dark eyes watched him.

He teased her folds slowly, gently, with a single finger. "Like this?"

She nodded. "Like that."

He slid that single finger inside her slowly, as his thumb found her clit.

Her eyes darkened and she watched him. "I like that."

"Wonder why I never thought to do this to you before," he mused aloud as he moved his fingers slowly.

"I don't know, because you certainly have magic hands."

He laughed softly. "And with everything else we've done, it's even more amazing I never thought of this before."

"That is very true, you know."

He let a second finger join the first, slowly and carefully.

She squealed softly when he did that and lifted her hips gently.

His hand stilled. "Too much?"

"Never too much, not with you. Just caught off guard."

"Sorry," he said, letting her get used to the two fingers before he started moving them slowly, teasingly.

"It feels so damn amazing."

"Glad you think so," he said softly. "Tell me if it's too much. I don't want to hurt you."

"It's not possible for something so good to hurt, love."

"Even so, tell me." He shifted his fingers a little, as his thumb pressed against her clit.

"God," she gasped lifting up slightly.

"Not the first time I've been called that," he teased.

"Mikhail," she growled, moving against his hand.

"That's it," he encouraged, his thumb pressing against her again. "Let me hear you, Danielle."

The growl became a little louder as she writhed against his hand.

"Oh, you're a little wildcat, aren't you?"

She probably would have had a pithy retort if she wasn't overwhelmed with so many sensations right then.

And he knew it, too. He knew so many of her responses, so many of the ways she reacted to things. But he didn't know it all and God, did he look forward to learning the rest.

Dani moaned softly, her hands tangling in her sheets. It was amazing how this man knew how to undo her with a touch.

"That's my girl," Mikhail said softly. "Let go, Dani."

Between his hands and the tension that had been riding her before the drugs, it didn't take long for Dani to throw her head back and growl his name as she came.

"Fucking beautiful," Mikhail declared as he pulled back. "Absolutely fucking beautiful."

She whimpered his name again, her body trembling from the aftershocks.

He smiled softly and leaned in to kiss her lightly. "Happy birthday, sweetheart."

"I love you," she whispered. "Gods I love you."

"I love you, too." He smiled at her. "And damn, I love being able to say that."

She smiled up at him, her eyes still a little glassy. "I love being able to hear it."

"And I love that I'll be able to say it in public now."

She nodded. "No longer having to hide how I feel about you is a very good birthday present."

"If I'd known when your birthday was, I'd have actually gotten you a gift, though."

"I haven't really made a big deal out of my birthday in a few years, Mikhail. Only Dad has ever done that."

"You're my girl. I'm supposed to make a big deal out of your birthday."

She smiled. "Next time, then."

"Next time." He grinned. "And really, a mind-blowing orgasm isn't a half bad substitute birthday present."

She laughed softly. "It's a wonderful one."

"I'm so glad Locus never decided she needed to kill me for sleeping with you when you were underage."

"Me, too. I don't think she sees my age as a number, though. As long as I was happy, you were safe."

"She didn't seem too disapproving, either," Mikhail said. "That it was me, I mean."

"She knows that you're good people."

"I wonder how long it's going to take before the others realize we're involved... or that we have been for years."

"As soon as the bosses know, everyone in the organization will know. News travels fast."

"Whatever happens, it isn't pulling us apart."

"No." Her voice was fierce.

"No," he agreed, nodding in agreement.

"We've lasted this long in secret. We can last forever in the open."

"Damn right we can."

She smiled at him, pulling him closer to her. "Hold me."

He wrapped an arm around her waist. "This good?"

She snuggled closer to him. "Mmm hmm."

"Don't want to hold you too tight," he said as he adjusted slightly.

"Never happen."

"Yeah, but you're sore right now. Not the time to be holding you tight."

"Maybe I need that."

"Then that's what you'll get," he said, tightening his arm around her a little.

"Good," she said, curling as close as she could. "Mikhail? Can I ask you a question and you promise not to laugh at me?"

"Of course," he said. "Name it."

She struggled with the question she wanted to ask and finally blurted it out. "Do you ever get tired of the death?"

"What do you mean? Of seeing it or of causing it?"

"Seeing it." That was the safer answer right now.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. "I do."

"So why do you stay?"

"What else would I do, for one thing? For another... I believe in the cause, even if I don't agree with the methods sometimes."

She nodded, thinking quietly to herself.

"What about you?"

"I believe in the cause... and I owe my dad."

"But the death still gets to be a bit much sometimes, even when we believe."

"Yeah," she said softly against his side. "Sometimes it does."

"So we do the only thing we can -- we cling to each other."

She nodded. "It scares me sometimes that I may be getting used to the death and it won't bother me one day."

"Why do you think you're getting used to it?"

"Because when the car exploded, it didn't bother me until I lost my bike and I felt pain."

"That's not getting used to it, it's compartmentalizing things," he said gently. "You were doing what you had to do to get the job done."

"Maybe," she nodded. "It was just a surprise."

"It's always scary to think you're getting used to death."

"What's scary is that X-Men team that my dad is fighting a lot lately. I keep waiting to see when he's going to summon me from here so I can help against them."

"They're dangerous in their own ways," he said. "How overprotective of me does it make me to want to go up against them with you when your father pulls you away?"

"Makes you knowledgeable of the danger and how good of a team we make."

"So when or if he pulls you away, I'm there."

"Thank you for wanting that."

"You're welcome, sweetheart."

"May not happen for awhile, but that day is coming."

"When it does, I'll be there." He kissed her gently. "I promise."

And she'd become the one person he tried never to break a promise to.

She kissed him back, happy to hear that.

"But I'm still allowed to hope it doesn't come for a good long while, right?"

"Yes, because I'm hoping that same thing."

"I'm also hoping for a vaguely peaceful tomorrow so we can spend it like this," he said softly. "Though I don't think I've ever just cuddled with a woman before."

"You haven't?"

"No, I haven't."

"I like that I'll be your first in that."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll be my first for plenty of things."

"Like saying I love you?"

"Yep." he grinned cheerfully.

She smiled. "I knew that." Somehow, she had known that.

"How do you know so much, little one?" It was said as an endearment, as she'd know by now.

"Because you've let me see inside you and see parts of you that you don't show others."

"Parts that I will never show anybody else."

"Just ours."

"Just ours," he agreed.

"I like that, you know," she said groggily. "That there are things about you only I know."

"And there are things about you that only I know."

"Never told anyone," she murmured, closing her eyes.

"But you told me," he said, running a hand over her arm gently.

She nodded her head against him. "Told you," she agreed.

"You'll tell me a lot of things you won't tell anybody else."

"That's true," she said snuggling closer and closing her eyes. "Wouldn't trust some of the things with anyone but you."

"I will never violate that trust."

"I know. I have faith in you."

"Few people have ever had that much faith in me."

"I do."

"Thank you for that. It means the world to me."

"You're welcome. I love you."

"I love you, too." He thought he would never get tired of saying that.

"Mikhail? It's hard to stay awake."

"So go to sleep."

"Will you stay?"

"Already said I would, love."

She nodded. "They gave me something."

"They gave you a whole lotta something, by the sound of it," he teased gently.

"Locus made them. She said I needed rest."

"She was right. You do."

"You guys just didn't want me to skin Wildside alive."

"That, too."

"I wouldn't have killed him." Maybe.

"Sure you wouldn't have."

"Maimed him? Fed into all of the stupid Indian stereotypes by scalping him?"

"Hey, it's not feeding into a stupid stereotype if he deserves it." There was logic in that somewhere.

"He could have killed the rest of you with his stunt with the bombs."

"And believe me, he'll be hearing about that later."

"Ok. Good." She curled her body against him and buried her head in his shoulder.

"Just go to sleep, sweetheart. I'll be here when you wake up."

Dani nodded, her eyes unable to stay open. Mikhail was here. They could be honest about their relationship now. Nothing could go wrong.

Mikhail watched her until he was certain she was asleep before finally letting himself start to drift off.


	7. Chapter 7

The next two years were mostly good ones. At first their superiors had balked about Dani and Mikhail being personally involved and leading a team together, but when they saw how in sync they were on a mission, the decision was made to leave them together.

It was a decision that would be questioned for many years after -- when what should have been a routine mission went horribly wrong.

That day, they had new people on their team. Locus was injured and Tempo was ill, so they had temporary replacements. The target was a high rise that housed the laboratory for a group of scientists being funded by the Friends of Humanity. They were known to experiment on mutants and the MLF was going to take them out.

That was the plan.

Mikhail felt confident that they could pull this off with minimal risk or injury to themselves; that didn't stop him from feeling a sliver of nervousness for Dani. He was always nervous for her when they went on a mission. He couldn't help it. But he always pushed it aside in favor of work, because their job was more important.

Dani was feeling a small knot of dread in her stomach as they set out, but she wasn't sure why that was. She pushed it aside as not being fully confident with the temporary team members.

When she got to the elevator, she pressed her hand against her ear and the headset. "I'm in."

"Tell me what you're seeing," Mikhail said into his headset.

"I'm at the elevator bay on the thirteenth floor. It doesn't look like there are any offices up here that are secured entrances. I'm hitting the stairwell and going up to the next floor."

"Stay sharp, Moonstar."

"Always, Concussion. This floor is clear of security and of people. I'm in the stairwell heading up now. The wing team should come in hot in about five."

Mikhail found himself holding his breath, as he always did when he had to coordinate and wasn't there at her side.

"Tell them to watch themselves carefully on the fourteenth floor. Pressure plates in the floor."

Mikhail relayed the message before turning his attention back to what Dani was saying.

There was silence for a long moment and then Dani's hushed voice came over the headset. "Bingo. Labs on the sixteenth floor. I'm getting in now."

He bit back the urge to tell her to be careful again and settled for crossing his fingers and hiding his hand against his side.

"We're in! I'm at the main computer data bank now."

"Excellent."

"Bring the strike team. I'm into the main data screen. I can have their intel transferred within seconds."

"All right, team, let's move," Mikhail ordered.

When Dani heard Mikhail give the order, she turned back to the computer she was working on. She turned her headset off to keep it from interfering with the signal from her small laptop.

That was going to prove to be her biggest mistake. If she had left the headset turned on, what happened that day might never have happened.

From far off, she heard an explosion and knew that it was either a decoy for the people in the building, or it could be security protocols coming on line that they hadn't discovered and taken out yet.

Mikhail, meanwhile, had tried reaching Dani only to find her headset off. Or at least he figured it was off, given the lack of response. Swearing loudly, he'd taken off to join her.

Dani was confused when she heard more and more explosions starting to go off. That many explosions hadn't been part of the plan. She finished wiping their machines and placed the laptop in her bag. The extra jump drive she had, just in case, slid into a hidden pocket in her uniform. She backed up and turned to the door, only to find her way blocked by members of the team.

Members that were supposed to be outside.

"Not so fast, Moonstar."

She looked from one face to the other, feeling confusion in her mind. "What?"

"You're not going anywhere."

"You guys, we have to get out of here before this room blows."

"We do. You don't."

"What the hell, Reaper?"

Reaper shrugged. "What can I say?"

"You can't expect me to stay here while everything is blowing up around me. You're not the team lead."

"Oh, I know. Team lead expects you to stay, though."

Dani's head jerked back. "Concussion wouldn't expect anyone to stay here."

"Apparently you don't know him as well as you think you do."

Dani felt something constricting her breathing as she looked from Reaper to the three people that had been assigned to their team temporarily. "I've known him for four years."

"Yeah, but how well do you know him?" Reaper countered. "He's not exactly the nicest guy on the planet."

Two things happened almost simultaneously.

Dani felt something sharp slice into her side at the same time she heard Mikhail's voice from the hallway.

"Reaper! Quit toying with her and just get it done."

She stumbled back, trying to staunch the flow of blood from the claws that had raked across her ribs while she had been distracted.

"I don't understand," Dani said. "Why are you guys doing this?"

Reaper grinned. "The world's not quite the way you understand it, Moonstar. We're hardly good people."

"But we're on the same team!" She moved to the side, which was the only reason that Reaper's scythe didn't take out her heart when he swung. Instead, it cut into a part of her chest and then sliced along the ribs.

"Mm, not so much. At least, not entirely." Reaper knew the logic would escape her; he didn't care.

At the same time, Strobe fired, throwing Dani back into the computers as they exploded around her. Her head connected with the ground hard and her eyes went out of focus. That was why she wasn't able to dodge the fist to her face from Nuwa.

"Concussion!" Dani's yell was cut off by another attack from Reaper.

"He can't save you now," Reaper said, his voice nearly a snarl. "And why would he want to? You heard him, I'm supposed to stop toying with you." He grinned. "But toying with you is so much fun."

Dani knew she was in trouble. She was losing too much blood to focus her body on doing anything, much less her powers. "Concussion," she yelled again. "Get your ass in here, damn it!"

"He's not coming, Moonstar."

Dani was having a hard time understanding what was happening. Her team was trying to kill her -- and Mikhail was ignoring her calls for help.

"He promised," she heard herself saying as she fought to hold onto consciousness.

"Concussion," Suwa called to the hall. "Moonstar wants to see you before we finish her."

"Oh, all right."

The fact that she heard Mikhail's annoyance hurt almost more than all of her wounds combined. She saw him enter from where she was collapsed on the floor.

"You always were a stubborn thing, Moonstar."

"Had to be," she said. "You need that for the jobs we do."

"That stubborn's your downfall right now, though. Because it makes you think I'm going to save you."

"You said you loved me," she murmured and then pain was clear in her eyes. "You promised to never hurt me and said you'd always keep me safe."

"You know I lie when I have to," he said simply.

"But to _me_? After everything we've been through the last four years?"

"What can I say?" He shrugged. "I do what I have to."

"So none of it meant anything and you're going to let them kill me here and leave me. You're not going to help at all?"

"Why should I?"

"You promised," she whispered, her heart breaking as she looked at him. She swallowed hard. She wasn't about to let him see her cry. "Just tell me _why_? Why are you doing this? I'm your second and I've always watched your back. I've never been anything but loyal."

"They were right. Sleeping with my second's made me weak."

That hurt more than anything else that she was experiencing right now. "So you repay loyalty with murder. Wish someone would have told me that a lot sooner."

"It was fun while it lasted, though."

"Bastard." That would have had more bite if she wasn't choking up blood.

"You knew that from the start."

"Didn't..." Dani struggled for air. "...think you were... this bad..."

"You thought wrong."

It was telling of how much pain she was in that she didn't remind Mikhail what would happen to the whole organization when her father found out what they had done. After all, with this group of people in the room, only Mikhail knew who her father was and she was feeling vindictive enough not to provide the information.

"Hope you rot in hell." She tried to spit at him, but all that came up was blood. Her body was shutting down much faster than her mind was.

"If I do, I'll see you there."

It would have taken too much effort to call him every name she could think of, so she settled for turning her face away from him. Nothing else could hurt her as much as this betrayal did. Mikhail had promised to never hurt her and to never leave her.

Dying hurt a whole lot less than that.

Retreating footsteps could be heard, as well as Reaper's mocking laughter.

Dani felt tears prick her eyes when Mikhail walked away, but she refused to let them fall because she wasn't sure if anyone else had followed him. There was no way she was going to cry in front of these people. The small comfort was that Locus and Tempo would tear this team apart when they found out about her death.

Maybe they'd let Wildside loose on them, too.

 

Mikhail, meanwhile, had spent the entire time trying to get to Dani in the first place. He reached the area just as the team came running down the hall... minus Dani.

"Where's Moonstar?" he demanded.

"We lost her," Suwa said hurriedly. "They got her cornered at the mainframe. By the time we got there she was dead and the explosions destroyed the lab."

That? Would be Mikhail going several shades of pale. "I have to get to her. I have to recover her body." Put the team leader in grief and you've got a wonderful thing -- if you're a team trying to lie to him.

Suwa pushed him back. "Concussion, there is a fireball of immense proportion heading our way. She did her job before the explosions took her out. Don't let her sacrifice be meaningless by getting yourself killed!"

There were tears in his eyes. "She deserves better," he said quietly, even as he let Suwa push him in the right direction.

"I don't doubt that," Suwa said, her voice as gentle as her voice ever got. "But that room is ash now, and she wouldn't want you to join her."

"No, she wouldn't," Mikhail said quietly. "You're right. Of course you're right. Let's get out of here."

Suwa nodded, waiting for Mikhail to hurry after the rest of the team before she followed him. She had been ready to render him unconscious and drag him out of the building. Luckily, she hadn't needed to.

Mikhail was actively trying not to fall apart. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't yet. He'd let himself fall apart later, in the safety of his own quarters. Right at the moment, he had to worry about the team.

"Go go go!" Suwa said, yelling at him and the rest of the team. She knew better than to think that she could slide into being Mikhail's second. Hell, Locus would kill her first if she tried. However, that didn't mean she wasn't going to make sure he got the hell to safety before the whole building blew.

Mikhail just ran as fast as he could manage.

Suwa followed, hitting the ground as the building started exploding from different points behind them.

 _So long, Moonstar._

 

It wasn't the kind of situation the team would've ordinarily taken its youngest members into, but Colt and Shadowcat had their uses, and they worked well together. This would be why they were always teamed up, and why they were together now.

"Stay careful," Colt -- Tamsin Doniger -- cautioned to her friend and partner. "I'm not explaining to Logan why a burning beam landed on you."

"It won't," Kitty Pryde said, keeping a hand on her partner's arm. "Or on you, either." It was a useful thing to keep phased in a building that was exploding around them. "Anything, yet?"

Tamsin liked that whole phased thing. "Don't end up coming unphased in the middle of a wall or something. I may be good, but I still can't pull you out."

"I'd make sure you were out safely first." Not that it mattered. If she was in trouble, Tamsin would stay until she was safe.

"Well, hopefully we won't have to worry about that."

"I like this plan. It's a good plan."

"Damn right it is," Tamsin said distractedly, looking around them.

"So far, all I'm finding is dead bodies," Kitty said, using the scanner in her hands to look for faint heart beats or heat signals. "There's nothing here but... uh oh."

"What 'uh oh'?" Tamsin asked, her gun still up.

"Tam... according to this, there's someone still alive on the floor above us. Not long alive if the fact that her colors are fading, but alive for a moment at least." Kitty swallowed. "She's in the part of the building where the worst of the explosions started."

"Then we'd better get our asses up there."

Kitty nodded and holding tightly on to Tamsin's arm, started air-walking up to the ceiling and then passed through to the floor on the level above. She moved her scanner around.

"Over here, Colt," Kitty said, slipping into using code names as soon as she had identified someone living around them.

"On it, Shadowcat."

When they found the body, Kitty gasped softly. "No explosion did this to her, Colt."

Tamsin could only stare. "Definitely not."

Kitty knelt down next to the young woman. "She's not much older than us and someone sliced her open."

"Bastards," Tamsin spat. "Absolute bastards."

"Concussion," the girl on the floor opened her eyes and blood ran down the side of her mouth. "Thought he loved me."

Kitty gasped. "Colt, this is Moonstar -- Magneto's daughter. We know her. We've _fought_ her MLF team before!"

Tamsin had to stare for a moment before recognition set in. "The hell?"

"Moonstar," Kitty said softly. "Moonstar, can you hear me? We're going to help you." Kitty wasn't sure they could save her, but she wasn't going to let the girl die scared and alone. "Can you tell us who did this to you?"

"My team." Moonstar responded, choking up more blood. "New people. Concussion."

"That... doesn't make any sense," Tamsin said, kneeling next to her and taking her hand, projecting an air of calm that might or might not actually affect her.

"Reaper... not usually team," Moonstar told them. "Ambushed me. Don't know why. Concussion said... I made him too weak. Said he'd see me in hell."

Kitty tapped her radio at her ear. "Wolverine, Storm, Colt and I have a situation. There's a badly injured girl here. She needs help, but she is too badly wounded for us to risk trying to get her out of here on our own." She took a breath. "It's Moonstar."

"Ssh, it's all right," Tamsin soothed. "We're going to get you out of here and we'll get you taken care of, I promise."

"Too much. Dying and they won. Don't understand why. He said he loved me." She tried to get a breath and all that happened was more blood filled her mouth and her chest darkened with blood from her wounds. "Human doctor. I tried to save him. Is he alive?"

"I don't... I don't know." Tamsin looked to Kitty.

"There was one doctor taken away by the paramedics," Kitty said as she talked on the radio. "Human. Hurt, but he'll live."

Moonstar tried to nod, but she couldn't move her body. "Good. Got one away before people killed him just because he was human."

"Moonstar, you have to hold on. Help is on the way."

"No help for me, Shadowcat. Too damaged. Dying." Even now her voice was falling into pained gasps.

"You're going to be fine, damn it," Tamsin snapped. "Don't forget who we have on our side."

"Won't save me. I'm MLF and Brotherhood."

"They will if we want them to." They might not _like_ it, but they'd do it.

"Moonstar, our team won't leave you to die, not like this. We're not killers."

"MLF thinks they killed me. Concussion betrayed me and ordered them to kill me." She coughed, more blood coming up. "Just... leave it be." Her eyes closed and that would be the last thing Danielle Moonstar said for a very long time.

Tamsin looked at Kitty. "We're not letting her die of what amounts to a broken heart."

Kitty shook her head. "She was trying to save a human, Colt. I bet that pissed those bastards off. It sounds like she was trying to do the right thing."

"She always did strike me as one of the more reasonable ones." Though Tamsin's definition of reasonable wasn't necessarily anybody else's definition.

"We can't leave her here. If her MLF unit did this because she was trying to save a human being, then she's not completely like them. If she lives, maybe we can recruit her to our side."

"Maybe," Tamsin said with a nod. "It's a good idea, at least."

"I'm not letting her die without at least trying to get her help. We have wonderful technology that no one else has access to. Maybe that will help her. She's only three or four years older than us -- if that." Kitty swallowed, looking at the wounds in her chest and neck. "She looks like she was sliced open with a sword or something -- like a thicker version of Wolverine's claws."

"Jesus Christ," Tamsin whispered. "Who could've done this to you, girl?"


	8. Chapter 8

"We'll get her back with us and then do some research on who is currently with the MLF." This meant Kitty would use her skills and hack into systems belong to people known to fund MLF. She would have said more, but that was when Wolverine and Storm arrived in the room.

"What's going on, girls?"

Kitty moved aside slightly so that they could see the dying young woman on the floor in front of them.

"That's Moonstar," Logan said quietly, sniffing the air. "What the hell happened to her?"

"The only names she gave us before she lost consciousness were Concussion and Reaper." Kitty responded. "Her team apparently turned on her because she saved a human."

"This must not have been the first time she tried to do that, then," Storm said. "The team had to have ambushed her. We've seen her directing teams in fights and they would not have been able to do this to her if she was expecting."

Kitty looked at her teammates and foster parents as she and Tamsin stayed crouched by the fallen young woman. "She mentioned Concussion more than once. We think she's giving up on fighting to stay alive because he betrayed her."

"I _know_ she has," Tamsin said stubbornly. "I can feel it. She doesn't want to die, but she doesn't care if she does."

That made Wolverine snarl a little.

"We have to save her," Tamsin said. "She can't die here, not like this."

Kitty agreed with her. "She's only a few years older than us and obviously she was trying to save people."

"We don't doubt she can change, Shadowcat," Storm responded. "She's a child and we won't let a child die. We just don't know if we can save her -- much less move her without causing more trauma."

"We have to try, though," Tamsin said.

Kitty tapped the communicating radio again. "Phoenix..."

"Shadowcat, you don't have to use that thing, you know." Rachel smiled from where she was walking through the door. "I always monitor you and Colt when you go somewhere I wish you wouldn't." The smile on her face belied the stark worry in her eyes.

"So... constantly, then?" Tamsin grinned for a second before looking back to Moonstar.

"I can use my telekinesis to wrap around her and keep her carefully in stasis so that we can get her back to the mansion."

"Good plan."

"We have to go now, though, Storm. She's fading fast."

Tamsin looked at Moonstar again. "Hang in there," she murmured.

Shadowcat nodded. "You are not allowed to die."

And disobeying those two never ended well, especially when they had Wolverine backing their play.

"Let's get out of here," Ororo ordered.

Tamsin nodded, pushing herself to her feet quickly.

When they got to their feet, Rachel looked at Dani and then her body slowly started to rise -- encased in what looked like an orange and blue cocoon of flame.

"We'll get her to the Blackbird and then the mansion."

Tamsin just nodded, moving closer to Kitty as though for comfort.

Kitty reached out and took Tamsin's hand. They both needed the comfort after seeing this. Kitty would probably be sick later when she remembered how Moonstar looked when they found her.

"Logan?" Kitty whispered once they were safely in the Blackbird and heading away from the exploding building.

"Yeah, Kitten?"

"Will our people be able to save her?"

Logan gave her a tight smile. "If any one can save her Kit, it's our people."

"She's going to be fine, Kitty," Tamsin said softly.

Kitty nodded, leaning her head on her best friend's shoulder. "How could anyone do something like that to a member of their own team?"

"I don't know," Tamsin said softly. "It just... doesn't make any sense."

"It doesn't. I don't understand."

Tamsin sighed. "And not just because they're the bad guys. It... you don't do that to your team, no matter what kind of problems you have with them."

"Exactly! No matter what, you don't try to kill people on your team. It's a betrayal of trust!"

"You find some way to deal with it but you don't do that." Tamsin took Kitty's hand in hers and squeezed it.

Kitty nodded. "We can't let her die, Tam. Not after this. She needs to know that not all people are like that."

"She's gonna be fine," Tamsin said firmly. "She'll make it. We've got people who can save her."

 

Mikhail wasn't sure how he'd managed to get back to base, or how he'd gotten to Danielle's room. All he was aware of was getting into her room, shutting the door, and then collapsing on the bed that they shared almost more than they shared his.

It couldn't be true. She couldn't be dead. He wouldn't allow it. He couldn't have lost her after so few years, he just couldn't.

Sighing, he buried his face against her pillow and let the tears come, let the pain overwhelm him and the anger flow freely. He let the emotions happen as they came, running the gamut quickly and stalling quite hard on grieving. Mikhail Sorokin didn't cry, hadn't cried -- truly cried -- in years, not since he was a teenager. But now he was faced with a loss he couldn't cope with and so he did the only thing he could think of.

He wept.

He wasn't sure how long he cried for, exactly, but he was distracted by the ringing of a phone. His cell phone. He bolted upright, startled; he hadn't realized he'd left it in Danielle's room in the first place. He reached over to grab it off the nightstand. "Hello?"

"Hello, Mikhail."

Mikhail winced. Just what he needed, a call from Danielle's father. Only question was, was the older man speaking to him as Magneto or as Erik?

"Hello, sir." Because he'd be damned if he wasn't going to show a grieving father some respect. Especially this particular one.

"Are you all right?"

"I lost Danielle, sir. So no, I'm not all right." And then Mikhail winced; snapping at the other man -- be he Erik or Magneto -- was a pretty stupid move.

"Fair enough. I suppose the question, then, should be how are you holding up?"

"Not very well," Mikhail admitted, flopping back onto the bed. "I shouldn't have lost her. She was part of my team, damn it. I should have been able to protect her."

"Why weren't you there?" Curiosity, with the potential to become more.

"I got detained," Mikhail explained. "Too many blasts going off, they kept me from getting to her. By the time I was even close... it was too late."

"She loved you," Erik said gently. "Don't ever forget that, no matter how hard it gets for you. And I won't lie to you, Mikhail, it won't be easy. Losing those you love and who loved you in return is never easy."

"I know she loved me, sir. She was never shy about showing me. I just hope she knew how much I loved her." How much he would always love her, because that kind of love never died and never faded. Settled into something a little different with time, maybe, but never truly faded.

"She didn't talk to me about her feelings much, but I think I can safely say that yes, she knew how much you loved her." Erik's voice was gentle but pained. "I could hear it in her voice the times we talked, no matter what was said about you."

"Good things, I hope," and then he was kicking himself mentally because how could he possibly make a joke at a time like this.

"For the most part, yes," Erik said dryly.

Mikhail wasn't entirely sure whether the older man was joking then or not; Erik had a notoriously dry sense of humor at times, this possibly being one of them.

"That's Danielle for you," Mikhail said, fondness coloring his voice. "She never minced words. If she had an opinion, she said it -- and not always in the gentlest words." Which didn't mean that Danielle had ever meant to hurt anybody, because she wasn't that kind of girl. She was -- had been -- the kind of girl who never saw the need to pull her punches, verbal or otherwise.

"You two were well suited to each other," Erik said. "You complemented each other."

"I like to think so," Mikhail replied. "All I know is that when I was with her, I felt more complete than I felt when I wasn't with her. It was like she made my entire world and everything I was just make sense." His voice broke slightly. "I don't know what I'm going to do without her."

"The same thing I am," Erik said gently. "You go on. You survive. You live. You _fight_. She would not want you to give up the fight, give up so much of what makes you who you are, because she is gone."

"No, she wouldn't," Mikhail agreed reluctantly. "She would want me to fight so that everything we've tried to accomplish wouldn't be in vain. I just don't much feel like fighting without her here to fight with me."

"She would hate that," Erik said. "She would want you to go on. At least enough to fight for the things she believed in."

Mikhail didn't know what to say. He wasn't going to try telling Erik that he just didn't understand, because Erik more than understood. But what _did_ he say?

"I can fight for her," he said after a moment. "Because I can't fight for myself right now. I don't have it in me. There's a part of me that wants to hide away for a while. I can't do that, I know, but part of me wants to. So it may be a while before I fight. But when I do, it'll be for her. For everything she stood for."

"Stay strong, Mikhail," Erik said. "I have faith in you."


	9. Chapter 9

To say that Charles was shocked at the condition of the young girl his students brought back to the mansion would have been a massive understatement. Moreso when he found out how they had discovered her and the fact that her own team had done this to her. A quick scan of her mind told him that she was still in her body – but just barely. Something worse than the wounds her body was suffering from had her retreating from life. If he couldn’t get her to _want_ to live, then healing her was going to be a battle. He directed Rachel to take her to the medical lab and then after making sure that she was in capable hands, he returned to his office.

He sat in front of his computer for several long moments before he typed up a quick e-mail. It was a risk, yes, but he couldn’t do any less for the man that was sometimes his enemy and always someone he cared about.

 _Call me. It’s important._

The message was short, even cryptic, but he didn’t want to deliver this kind of news over an e-mail. As he predicted, his private line started ringing shortly after he sent the e-mail.

“Erik,” he said quietly.

“As always, old friend, your messages leave me no hint about what is wrong. Have you finally decided that the dream is a fallacy and you need to lead your people in a new direction?”

Charles couldn’t help the tired smile that crossed his features. This greeting was so familiar that it had become a ritual. They both knew the answer, but it was something that was just between the two of them.

“I wish my news was happier, my friend, but I’m calling about your daughter. Your youngest.”

Erik’s voice changed in timbre. “Danielle is dead. I received word this morning.”

Charles winced, hearing the thread of grief in Erik’s voice. Say what you wanted to about the mutant Magneto, but the man loved his children dearly.

“How could you have received a message this morning about her being dead when my team have just returned with her this evening?”

There was silence on the other end of the line for a long moment. “I think that this merits an explanation, Charles.”

“My students found her when they went to a laboratory that was attacked by the MLF, Erik. She’s in very bad shape, but for the moment, she is still alive – but barely. What was done to her… I have never seen the like of it. Even when Wolverine is in a bezerker rage or I have seen Sabretooth attack someone there have never been wounds like this.”

Erik’s tone was carefully even. “What happened?”

“From what Shadowcat and Colt got from her, her own team did this to her.”

“Her own team turned on her?”

“That’s what she said and when I scanned her mind that was what I saw, as well.” Charles knew he was tempting Erik’s anger, but he couldn’t lie to him, not about his daughter.

“I want to see her.”

“Of course. I’ll let my students know to expect your arrival and that you are coming to see Danielle and not to attack us.”

“She is in good hands with you, Charles, I know this.”

“I hope so, Erik, but when I scanned her mind…”

“What aren’t you telling me?”

“She wants to die. Something happened that is so painful she doesn’t want to live because of it. It’s something personally traumatic to her that has hurt her more than the physical damage.”

“She won’t die.”

“We’re doing our best to make sure of that, but there are no guarantees.”

“She. Will. Not. Die.”

Charles rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We are not gods who can decide who dies or does not die.”

“My daughter will not die because her team dared to betray her.”

He recognized that tone of voice. “Erik, don’t do anything rash.”

“It is not rash to take vengeance when the youngest of your family has been betrayed and nearly killed,” Erik said in a reasonable voice. Charles hated it when he sounded so reasonable. “After all, it is no more than I would do for Pietro or Wanda.”

They both knew that his words weren’t the complete truth. He would do more for Danielle because – unlike her siblings – he had raised her from the time she was an infant. He would always seek to protect Pietro and Wanda, but for Danielle, he would raze cities.

“I hate it when you make vengeance sound so reasonable and logical.”

“It’s precisely one of the things you do like about me, my dear Charles,” Erik pointed out. “You know that vengeance is something that I am the best at seeking.” It went unsaid that if anything ever happened to Charles it would be Erik who would be the one seeking retribution across lines that even his own students didn’t dare to cross.

Charles leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “You have a knack for making the illogical sound logical.”

“This is not something that you haven’t known for years.”

He laughed softly. “Point taken.” He took a breath. “So you’re coming to see her, then?”

“I’ll be on my way as soon as I hang up the phone.”

“All right. Just keep in mind that she is in very bad shape and it wasn’t my people who did this to her.”

“Noted. I’ll be there soon, Charles.”

After he hung up the phone, Charles sighed, shaking his head. He had done what he could to prepare his old friend for seeing the condition of his youngest child. However, he knew that no matter what he did, there was no preparation that would make the fact that the young girl was close to death any easier to take. He also knew that there was a very good chance that all hell would break loose if Danielle did die. He could only imagine what going through a loss like that again would do to Erik.

They would do all they could to prevent it, but like he had told Erik, they weren’t gods – no matter what access they had to medical technology that was not of this world.

Leaning back in his chair, he closed his eyes for a moment, letting his mind reach out to find the ones he needed to speak with right away.

 _*X-Men, you’re needed in my office right away.*_

 

Erik Lensherr, Magneto, looked down at the girl on the bed without any expression on his face. There were so many tubes going into her arms that he wasn’t sure what all of them were for. The monitors beeped quietly in the background and the oxygen machine made subtle noises as it did the breathing for her.

Charles had tried to prepare him for seeing his daughter, but no amount of talking could have prepared him for this. She looked so pale and fragile – a look he hadn’t seen from her since she was an infant.

“Danielle,” he said quietly, reaching out to take her hand in his. “Open your eyes and look at your father, Danielle.”

There was no response, but after what Charles had told him and the extensive damage he knew she had sustained, he hadn’t really expected her to.

“Don’t you dare die, Danielle.”

He sensed more than heard Charles join him beside his daughter’s bed.

“Erik…”

“She’s the only one of my children that I ever got to watch grow up. We don’t share blood, but she’s every bit my daughter – just as Wanda is. I don’t think I’ve seen her look so fragile since she was a very young infant. This isn’t right.”

“We will do all we can for her, you have my word.”

Erik nodded. “I know.” He sighed. “She said her team did this to her?”

“Yes. It’s what she told Shadowcat and Colt. We’re trying to figure out what type of weapons were used on her.” He looked at Dani for a long moment. “The one that cut her up like this is apparently someone named Reaper. Phoenix is doing a search for him. Danielle wasn’t able to tell them much before she slipped into the coma.”

“Will she come out of it?”

“There’s no way for us to tell here. Phoenix and I keep scanning her mind to make sure she’s still in there. We’d have a better chance if we took her to Lilandra and used Shi’ar technology.”

“Why haven’t you done so already?”

“Because she is your daughter and not mine. I wasn’t going to take her into the far reaches of space without talking to you, first.”

Erik nodded. “Do it, Charles, please.”

“Of course. I’ll get the team to start preparations.”

Erik was silent for a long moment, just watching his daughter. Finally he let out a breath. “Perhaps we should let it be known that Danielle Moonstar is dead and her father, Magneto, has vowed to punish those responsible.” He turned to look at Charles. “It would be safer for her. If her team turned on her for some reason, then there is always the chance that if they think she is alive they will try again.” He gave his old friend a tired smile. “Not that I have any doubts about how your students would fight to protect her since they were the ones that brought her here, but it seems to me that avoiding a fight like that while she is fighting for her life would be a good thing.”

Charles nodded. “It would be good to avoid a fight – and if they believe she is dead, when she comes out of the coma, she will have the opportunity to heal in peace and not keep looking over her shoulder.”

“Also a good thing.” He looked back at his daughter. “Shadowcat and Colt have my gratitude for finding her and getting her brought to you.”

“It’s what they do, Erik. They would not have left her to die and they made that decision as soon as they found her. Even after identifying her, that decision didn’t change.” He ran a hand wearily over his face. “She’s not that much older than the two of them and seeing her reminded them that at any point they could be in a condition like that.”

“We each try to protect our children in the way that we think is best, but we can’t always protect their eyes from what the future could bring.”

“I wish I could disagree with you on that, but you’re right. We do all we can, but we can’t protect them from everything that we would like to.”

Erik squeezed Dani’s hand once more and then lay it gently on the bed. “Take care of her, Charles, please. I cannot lose another child.”

“We will, Erik, you have my word.”

“Thank you.” He sighed again and turned for the door. “And now, if you will excuse me, I have the role of a grieving father for the world to see me play.”


	10. Chapter 10

Since there was no way the entire team could accompany Charles and Dani to the Shi’ar home world, Charles had to make some decisions on who was going and who was being left in charge of the school.

In the end, Tamsin and Kitty refused to be left behind. That meant that Rachel, Logan and Ororo were going as well. Scott and Jean were being left in charge of the school during his absence. He had faith in their abilities to do what needed to be done when he wasn’t there. Scott didn’t like not going with him, but he had to admit that it was highly unlikely that anyone would be able to get past Logan, Ororo _and_ the Shi’ar empire to harm his mentor.

When he was done going over last minute instructions, he directed Ororo to take the Blackbird up into space. During the journey, Kitty and Tamsin didn’t leave Dani’s side and he hoped that the other girl would pull through – for all of their sakes.

As soon as they met up with Corsair’s ship, they were escorted to their destination. Dani was whisked away as soon as the Shi’ar medics were briefed on the situation, and Tamsin and Kitty followed in their wake. As the others of his students went in different directions to visit with friends, Charles finally sighed and let himself make his way to the room that had been designated as his anytime that he visited.

It wasn’t long before he felt the comforting presence of Lilandra seeking entrance to his room. Once she was inside, she immediately wrapped her arms around him.

“She’s just a child,” Lilandra said sorrowfully, telling Charles that she already had seen Dani.

“She’s only a little older than some of my girls,” he agreed.

“She’s not one of yours,” she said in honest confusion. She knew all of Charles’ students and always paid careful attention to any changes in his family or his school. “Where did she come from?”

“Not yet she’s not, but if she survives and Kitty and Tamsin have their way, she will be.”

“The damage to her body is extensive, Charles. What happened to her?”

He sighed. “Her team betrayed her. She was trying to save a human doctor from being hurt and they didn’t appreciate it. Kitty and Tamsin found her.”

“It was lucky for her that they did. Perhaps luckier still that you brought her to us.”

Charles nodded, his arms around her. “I thought that if anyone could give her a chance at survival, your people could.” He paused. “Lilandra, she’s Erik’s daughter.”

“That brings a whole new set of complications, I gather. Does he know?”

“I contacted him as soon as she was found and brought to my school. He gave his permission to bring her here.”

Lilandra nodded, running her hand along his back in a soothing manner. “We will do all we can for her, my love, I promise you.”

“I know,” Charles whispered. “I know.”

 

The only thing that pulled Mikhail out of his misery was the thought that someone had to tell Locus and Tempo what'd happened. This thought got him out of Dani's room, but he was saved from having to find the other two by the fact that they'd apparently come looking for him.

"What happened, Concussion?" Locus demanded, looking impatient.

Oh, God. How did he say it? How did he actually say the words and give her death even more of a sense of finality?

"Well?" Tempo prodded.

"It... didn't go as planned," Mikhail began, feeling it a safe enough opening. "I couldn't get to her right away because there were so many blasts going off. By the time I got to her... I met up with the rest of the team coming down the hall. They told me that she was gone."

"Did you see her body?" Locus asked, her voice gone quiet. "Did you find out for a fact that she was gone?"

"There wasn't time to get to her," Mikhail said quietly. "I wanted to. I tried to. But the others wouldn't let me."

Locus wanted to snap at him, rage at him, strike out at him, but the abject misery on his face kept her from it. She and Tempo were hurting at the loss of their good friend, but he was hurting at the loss of his lover, the woman who'd completed him. Without her, a part of him was broken. So she held back on everything she wanted to say. She could do that much for him.

Tempo had no problems striking out verbally, though.

"How do you know she was dead?" she snapped. "Moonstar could've been just unconscious or even just comatose. She could've still been _alive_ , Concussion. There could've been the possibility of saving her, of helping her, and now we'll never know because you didn't have the courage to brave a falling down building to get to her."

"Tempo, enough," Locus hissed. "There's a time and a place. This is neither. Can't you see he's hurting just as badly as we are?"

Still seething, Tempo looked at Mikhail. Saw the pain in his eyes and written on his face. And she knew that she'd just given him something else to blame himself for in addition to all the rest -- because she knew her team leader more than well enough to know that he'd already been blaming himself.

"Concussion... Mikhail... I'm sorry."

They were the only words Tempo said, but they told Mikhail all he needed to know -- that she really _was_ sorry. Most of the team didn't call him by his first name unless it was important. Dani was the only one who'd ever used his first name on a consistent basis.

And now he'd never hear her say it again.

Biting the inside of his cheek, he gave a short sharp nod. "Apology accepted." His words were brusque, but if they hadn't been he would have cried, and he would _not_ cry in front of two members of his team. He had to stay strong. They would expect it of him. Or rather, they would expect him to stay strong in public and break down in private. There was precious little he could do right now, he could do that much.

"We should... I don't know..." Tempo trailed off, raking her fingers through her hair. "We should do something. Like a memorial service."

"Not now," Mikhail said quietly. "I can't talk about that right now."

"No, of course not," Locus said quickly. "But it's a good idea. We'll worry about that, you worry about grieving." Not that she particularly wanted to plan a memorial service for her best friend, but she'd had to do something to shut Tempo up before the other woman put her foot in her mouth yet again. Once had been more than enough.

"Thank you," Mikhail said quietly, managing something of a smile. It was a shadow of his usual brilliant grin, though; at the moment, he suspected he might never smile that way again.

"You don't need to thank us," Locus said quietly. "We're a team, Concussion, but more than that... we're family. And family takes care of its own. This is us taking care of you."

There weren't words for how he appreciated that, for how Locus and Tempo had taken control of the situation in a way that took none of his position away from him and had left him firmly in command.

Even though all he wanted to do was run.

 

Three months passed and still, there was no change in Dani. The Shi'ar worked to heal the damage to her body, but no matter what they did, she didn't wake up. To some people, it would be said that she needed to stay unconscious so that her body could adjust to everything it had gone through. After all, the damage had been extensive and even with their technology, it had been a fight for the Shi'ar medics to repair all of the damage.

But the X-Men that were there didn't believe that. Kitty and Tamsin didn't believe that. They knew what she had said when they found her and they knew what Tamsin had felt from her before she lapsed into the coma.

Day after day, the two of them sat at the comatose woman's side and talked to her. Sometimes they told her stories of their lives and once Kitty was overheard to be _begging_ Dani to wake up.

It was hearing this that led Logan to be sitting at Dani's side at a time when the two girls had been chased away to get some sleep. He was silent for a long time before he reached out and took her hand.

"Listen, girl," Logan said quietly. "I'm not going to beg you to get better and to stay alive. I'm not going to ask you to open your eyes and come back to us. That's what my girls have been doing and it doesn't seem to have worked very well. So, we're doing this my way. You _will_ wake up and and you _are_ going to live. I don't know what it is that you're hiding from, but I do know that you are stronger than whatever that is. I know who your daddy is and I know how hard you've fought when the X-Men have faced the Brotherhood or the MLF. I know that you have a new family waiting for you to wake up. You're going to do that because you are not going to die on them. That is not an option and you are not allowed to die." He squeezed her hand gently. "You listen to me and you wake up, because you don't want to see what happens when you disobey me." His voice dropped as he leaned close to Dani's ear. "You wake up and you let yourself get better and I promise you, you won't be facing whatever hurt you like this on your own. I know what it's like to hurt so much you want to die, Dani, I do. But I didn't die, and neither will you. And when you're healed, I promise you, you won't be alone. I'll stand with you... and so will they."

Logan leaned back into his chair. He didn't like the idea of just watching Danielle Moonstar die. Yes, she had always been on a different side than the X-Men, but then again, he hadn't always been with the team, either. He probably understood what Dani would go through when she woke up more than any of them. Her team had turned on her and tried to kill her. Her supposed enemies had retrieved her and fought to keep her alive. Yeah, it was going to be one hell of a mind screw for her. However, she wasn't much older than his girls and they had attached themselves to her the moment they found her. That meant that whether Dani liked it or not, she was one of his family now.

And his family was never allowed to die on him -- especially when it was a betrayal that injured them.

"Trust me, girl," he spoke to her again. "You really don't want to take the chance of dying on me. I know people that could probably bring you back and then I would have to kick your ass all over the place for not listening to me from the start. That would take away from my drinking time and not even Kit and Tam get away with that." Well, they did, but the point was to make Dani decide to live. Letting her know that he was a soft touch with them was not part of that plan. "Of course, then I'd make you pick up my tab at the nearest bar and I can drink a lot."

Logan sighed, and reached to squeeze her hand gently again. "You can't let those bastards beat you, girl. I know how strong you are. It's not in your natural makeup to let someone like whoever hurt you destroy you like this. You're too strong -- and too much of your daddy's girl not to fight back."

One of the monitors beeped and then it let out a different beep. His ears heard the girl on the bed take a breath and then another. He looked down in time to see her eyes flutter before they finally opened.

"Wrong." The voice was barely a breath, but Logan heard her quite clearly.

"What am I wrong about?"

"I can drink you under the table."


	11. Chapter 11

It had taken months for Mikhail to finally make up his mind, to finally decide he had had enough of the Mutant Liberation Front. It had taken another couple of months after that for him to actually get out of the organization and leave while on decent terms with the people in charge. Now, a year after Dani's death, Mikhail was living in a little hole in the wall apartment in New York and hating every minute of it.

He slammed the door behind him as he came in, ignoring his neighbor's angry shriek of protest. The walls were paper thin, you could hear everything. Of course she was going to hear him slamming the door. Hell, she'd hear him quietly shutting it, much less slamming. But it was yet another thing Mikhail hated about the place.

He'd never imagined leaving the MLF. At least, not alone. The rare times he'd actually thought about it, Dani had always been at his side. He hadn't wanted to be anywhere that wasn't with her; he still didn't.

Mikhail was hit with a fresh wave of missing her, a wave that sent him to the refrigerator in search of a beer. Clutching the bottle, he leaned against the counter and lost himself in his thoughts.

He still dreamed about her sometimes. More than sometimes, truth be told. Not a week went by where he hadn't dreamed about her half a dozen times. And she was always on his mind, his quiet motivation to get out and make his life better than it was.

He wasn't so sure he was succeeding at that. In leaving the MLF, he'd lost his support system. He wasn't hurting for money, but if he wanted to remain that way, he had to have a way to bring in money. This had led to him freelancing for just about anybody who needed him. His skills were unique enough that he was never hurting for jobs. He could afford to be picky, too, because he knew he'd never be able to live with himself if he weren't.

Because every time he met a potential client, Dani's voice was in the back of his mind talking him through it, just like she'd always backed him up when she was alive. Oh, he knew it was just his brain working overtime, but he couldn't do anything without that little mental voice that sounded like Dani being right there with him.

He liked that voice.

Taking a swig of his beer, he quirked a smile. Liking that mental voice that sounded like his dead girlfriend was probably unhealthy and a sign of half a dozen different mental problems, but Mikhail didn't particularly care. Having that voice in his head made him feel a little less lonely. A little more like Dani was still with him.

He would move past the pain in time, he knew; already it hurt a little less every day to think of her. But part of him feared that moving past it. Part of him feared that moving past the pain would mean forgetting her, and that was something he would _never_ do.

He took another swig of his beer before heading for his bedroom. It'd been a long damn day and all he wanted to do was change into pajama pants, finish his beer, and sleep for a week and a half. He'd only get two of those three things, and sleeping for a week and a half sadly wasn't one of them.

He changed quickly and stretched out in bed, nursing his beer. Nursing it let him think, let him go over the events of the day. It was the one real routine he had in his life, the one thing that was always the same no matter what. Oh, sometimes there'd be variations -- different beer, different location -- but it was still basically the same.

And it was nursing that beer that let Mikhail's mind inevitably wander once again to Dani, who was never far from his thoughts in any case. These thoughts were softer thoughts, remembrances of the good times. And they'd had good times, a lot of good times. They'd worked well together and had been even better lovers. They'd had the perfect relationship, the perfect balance of work and play.

And then they'd lost it all.

Mikhail sighed, slugged down the last few drops of alcohol, and set the bottle aside. Clearly tonight wasn't going to be a night for remembering the good times.

Then again, a lot of nights ended with remembering his loss.

He figured the nights always would.

 

That first year was hard for Dani.

She had to learn to make her body work the way she wanted it to again. It was during her recovery that she was able to tell the X-Men what had happened to her and who had caused the wounds that almost killed her. While she was working on getting stronger, she spent a great deal of time talking to the people that had rescued her and hidden her so that she didn’t end up dead.

“Why?” It was a question she asked a lot over that first year of recovery. This time, when Hank McCoy made her get back into bed for rest, she asked the rest of her question. “Why did you risk so much to keep me alive?”

Kitty shook her head and smiled at her. “It’s what we do, Dani. We save lives when we can. When we found you in that exploding building, Tam and I weren’t just going to leave you there to die.”

“But I wanted to die,” she said softly, laying back against the pillows as the medic assigned by Dr. McCoy checked her over and made sure she took her medications.” “I wanted to die that day when you found me.”

“No you didn’t,” Kitty disagreed. “You thought you did, but you really didn’t. If you did, you wouldn’t be here right now.”

“Kitty,” Dani’s voice was sad. “You’re wrong. I did want to die. Sometimes, I wonder why I didn’t. Then I remember that Logan forbid me to die and he can be pretty damn scary.”

“Rachel told us you would hear us talking to you even though you were in a coma. It helps having a telepath and a celestial avatar as your friend.” Kitty smiled slightly. “Very few people disobey Logan and get away with it. He’s practically raised me and Tam.” She studied Dani’s face for a moment and saw the deep sadness in her eyes again. “Talk to me, Mama. Tell me why you wanted to die so badly.”

Dani shook her head. “First you tell me why you and Tam keep calling me Mama. I’m not that much older than you.”

The other girl shrugged and gave her a smile. “Because it suits you. You’re like a mother wolf sometimes. Even when you were barely able to move when we were on the Shi’ar ship, you got all snarly and fierce whenever someone you didn’t know came near Tam or I. One of their healers said you acted like a mother trying to protect us no matter how badly you were hurt. We started calling you Mama and even when you were sleeping, Rachel and Tam said that you felt like you needed to watch out for us.”

“I’m used to watching out for the people on my team.” Dani swallowed, closing her eyes for a long moment. “When I was with the MLF, I was one of their best tactical planners and I never lost a person on my team no matter how dangerous the mission was. I would never leave any one behind. It was one of the first things I learned from my dad.”

Kitty nodded. “I can see that. Magneto is very protective of his people.”

She sighed. “Does he know that I’m alive, Kitty? Does he at least know that I didn’t die?”

“Of course! The Professor contacted him as soon as we brought you back to the mansion. We weren’t going to let him believe that you were dead. He visited you before we took you to the Shi’ar. In fact, he gave the Professor his permission.” Kitty squeezed her hand gently. “He loves you, Dani. We’ve seen it. In fact, he was the one that told us not to let anyone know you survived the attack. He thought it would be safer for you if the MLF believed you had died.” She smiled. “Now, talk to me. Tell me the truth about why you wanted to die.”

“Because nothing could have been worse than the fact that it was my boyfriend who ordered my death.” Dani’s voice caught and she swallowed several times. “I was on the floor and I was already going in and out of lucidity. Reaper and Suwa were with us on that mission and it was them and Strobe that attacked me. I kept calling for Concussion but he didn’t come for awhile.”

“Concussion was your boyfriend?”

A tear slid down Dani’s cheek. “Yes. I loved him for a couple of years and I thought he loved me.”

“He didn’t?”

“That day when he finally came, it was to make sure that the job had been carried out. He said that they had been right and that sleeping with his second made him weak.”

“Oh God, Dani.”

Dani took a deep breath. “He left me there to die. He told me that I was wrong about him and that he had lied all of that time when he told me he loved me. All of those years we were together he was just using me until I wasn’t needed any longer.”

“What a bastard!”

“When he left me there, all I wanted to do was die. He hurt me much more than Reaper’s blades did. Reaper missed my heart, but Concussion tore it out.”

Dani closed her eyes again, trying to keep the tears at bay. She hadn’t cried much even when the pain of her recovery had been enough to make her want to scream. However, reliving those last moments with Mikhail was enough to make the tears start to flow. She had loved him so much and had thought they could leave the MLF one day and have a life together. Knowing that everything that she felt and believed had all been one-sided was something that hurt more than she ever expected to hurt.

She knew that Tamsin and Kitty believed they had done the right thing by saving her life and taking her with them, but sometimes she wasn’t sure they had done her much of a favor. Nothing that she was going through with her physical recovery was causing her as much pain as her broken heart was causing her.

 

Mikhail had developed a reputation for working with damn near anybody and everybody if he thought it was worth it. Not if the price was right, if he thought it was worth it. Which meant that he'd worked for some rather unorthodox people simply because they'd pulled at his heartstrings somehow.

This meeting, though, wasn't one of those meetings. This was Mikhail taking leave of his senses entirely.

This was Mikhail being approached by the Brotherhood.

When he'd first gotten the call, he'd half thought it was a practical joke and half thought that Magneto was finally planning to kill him. But he'd arrived at the arranged meeting place only to discover that he was in luck, that he was meeting with one of Magneto's lieutenants.

Almost a pity, really. Now he'd have to wonder if the _next_ time contact came from the Brotherhood it meant his death.

But until then, he would take their job -- and their money, he noted with a wry twist of his lips as he tucked the envelope into his jacket pocket. If they were willing to pay, he was willing to be paid.

"I trust there are no further questions," the woman -- Wanda, he'd learned her name was -- said with a twist of her lips that some would call a smile and others would call intimidation.

Mikhail called it intimidation. Luckily for him, he wasn't all that easily intimidated. Or seduced, he noted as Wanda's smile turned almost flirtatious in the blink of an eye. Her moods were enough to give him whiplash and he'd known her less than half an hour.

"No," he said evenly. "No further questions. If I have any, who may I contact?"

"Myself, of course," Wanda said. "I _am_ your contact on this assignment, after all."

Oh, lucky him.


	12. Chapter 12

She wasn’t sure when she started officially training with members of the X-Men. It was something that she never really noticed, but it happened gradually. When she was cleared for physical activity, she paid more and more attention to how the X-Men worked as a group. It was different than what she was used to because the power in the team was carefully balanced. They all worked well together and while there was always a field leader, each of the team members were valued for their contribution. While working with them in their Danger Room, Dani learned to adapt her powers to the differing ways the X-Men worked. Gradually she was able to start using her powers in more than just an aggressive manner.

And if it hurt to remember that she and Mikhail had planned to take time away from the MLF to better expand her powers in more ways than she already used them, well, she would do her best to bury that bit of pain.

She saw her father often during those days – probably more often than she saw him when she was a member of the MLF. He encouraged her to keep working with her powers to strengthen them and learn what else she could do with them now that she wasn’t on the front lines of the war right now. He was also the one that told her to continue to allow the world to believe she was dead. She needed to heal, and the safest place for her to do that was with the X-Men. They weren’t as much of a public target as he and his people made themselves.

Dani made time to work out every day and there were times that she pushed herself beyond her limits. However, there were times that she couldn’t do anything but throw herself into physically draining activities. These were the times that memories of Mikhail rose up and threatened to choke her with the strength of the hurt they caused.

Unfortunately, these were also the times that her body found new and interesting ways to remind her that she had come close to death and her body would never be the same again.

The first time this happened, she had been working out in the Danger Room in an attempt to chase away the painful memories that were stronger that day. That was when Logan found her leaning against the wall, taking shallow breaths because the muscles in her chest had seized and she couldn’t move her arm. He hadn’t said anything, just helped her get to the Med Lab and stood beside her as Dr. Moira MacTaggert explained what had happened and why.

She would always bear the scars from the betrayal of her MLF team – both seen and unseen. She had to be careful with what she did because she didn’t want her muscles to seize up at the worst possible moment in a combat situation. There must have been something in her face because later, after he helped her to her room, Logan sat with her. When the pain meds started to take effect, he looked her in the eyes and told her that she wasn’t ever going to be seen as being less than anyone else with the X-Men. She had been on the edge of death and had fought back to live again.

“If something happens and there comes a time where you can’t use your body like you want to, there will be other ways to help out. You have your powers and your mind. You don’t have to physically be in the fight to be a part of the team, Moonstar. You’re family now. That doesn’t have anything to do with your physical strength or the depth of your powers. You’re family because of who you are and the strength of your character.”

His words stayed with her the next few days when she wasn’t able to work out in the Danger Room because the pain was so bad and her muscles hadn’t fully relaxed. Instead of working out like she wanted to be, she somehow found herself sitting in a corner of the recreation room. She was reading to a few of the younger kids and using her powers to act out the book for them as she read.

It was the first time since she had come out of the coma that she honestly believed she would one day be all right emotionally. Healing took time, and the healing of one’s heart would take even more time. That day was the first time she believed that she would eventually stop feeling like she was dying inside every time she thought of Mikhail.

 

It'd been two and a half years since Dani's death, two and a half years of pain. Oh, it'd gotten better, yes, but that just meant that the pain no longer stabbed through him every single time he thought of Dani. No, now it was just a dull quiet ache in the corner of his heart and his mind. He'd forced it to be. He couldn't let grief rule him forever. She wouldn't want that.

"You're looking good, Concussion."

Mikhail looked up. "Tempo," he said, smiling faintly. "So are you."

"Yes, but I'm not the one who looked like shit because of grief riding hard last time we met," Tempo countered bluntly as she took a seat across from him.

The two of them met up every few months or so at the same outdoor cafe in New York, where Mikhail was still living -- though by now in a better apartment -- to catch up on things. And for Tempo, it was a chance to make sure that her former boss was really all right. He'd been MLF, which meant he mattered to her. But more than that, he'd mattered to Dani. Wherever Dani was, Tempo was pretty sure the young woman would find a way to haunt her forever if she knew someone wasn't looking after Mikhail.

And that duty had somehow fallen to Tempo.

"Point," Mikhail allowed, kicking a chair out from the table with his foot. "Have time to join me properly?"

"Today I do, actually," Tempo said, sitting gracefully in the chair.

The server came over to the table; Mikhail waited until Tempo had placed her order -- his was already on the way -- before giving her a faint smile. "I'm doing good, Tempo, I promise."

Tempo made a skeptical noise in the back of her throat. "Well, you _look_ like you are, but are you really?"

"I... I am," Mikhail said after a moment of honest contemplation on the matter because Dani's memory deserved that much. "It's not easy, of course, and I still have my bad days, but..." He shrugged. "I'm doing good. Or at least good as I can be, given what happened."

"It's been two and a half years, Mikhail," Tempo said gently. "Girl wouldn't want you to hurt forever."

"I know," he said, not even registering the fact that Tempo had called him by his first name, something she'd never done while they'd worked together. "But all the wanting in the world can't change how long grief takes to turn into something you can actually live with."

"True," Tempo allowed. "Especially since you had a healthy dose of guilt added to the mix."

Mikhail winced slightly. There was Tempo and her usual bluntness. "I did," he said. "I still have it. I always will. I'll always blame myself for not getting to her fast enough. But since I can't go back and change anything, I'll just have to do the best I can to turn that guilt into something I can actually use."

"You've been working a lot, haven't you?" Tempo asked, not entirely randomly. She knew how Mikhail operated. His default reaction was to throw himself into work; she'd seen it often enough during their MLF days when things hadn't gone right.

"I have." he nodded.

"Anybody interesting?" She couldn't help trying to pry.

"Nice try, Tempo," Mikhail said, laughing softly. "I applaud the attempt."

"Had to try." She shrugged. "You wouldn't tell me, though, if you'd worked for anybody interesting."

"Wouldn't tell you what I'd done, anyway." Because he made no bones about the people he'd taken assignments from.

"So basically, you wouldn't tell me anything good."

"Right in one." Mikhail grinned at her.

Tempo shrugged again. "Like I said, had to try."

"I'd worry about you if you didn't."

It was easy banter that didn't mean much of anything in the long run, but it was the little things like this that'd kept Mikhail rooted to his life, that even now kept him from falling apart entirely.

"Met anybody?"

"Jesus, you're really just playing blunt with me today, aren't you?"

"Where's the fun in doing anything else?" Tempo countered, falling silent as her order was brought out and set in front of her.

Once the server had walked away, Mikhail said, "The only woman I've met who's made me consciously note her attractiveness has been Wanda, that was over a year ago, and I was never interested in her because she's too crazy for me."

"Plus you still love Dani."

Mikhail nodded. "Mostly because of that."

Entirely because of that, because if he wanted to be with someone, he wouldn't care about their mental state.

"Wanda Maximoff can't help being a little wacky," Tempo said with a shrug, taking a sip of her coffee. "But yeah, she'd be a poor choice to move on with. Being A: crazy and B: Dani's sister and all."

"Where in this conversation did I say that I wanted to?" Mikhail said. "All I said was that she's the only woman I've seen in two and a half years who's made me look at her and think she was beautiful."

"You're noticing people again," Tempo said with a satisfied nod. "Even if you don't want anything more, at least you're noticing that kind of thing about people again."

Except Mikhail wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. It felt too much like a betrayal of Dani and her memory. Especially since the first person he'd noticed had been her sister.

 

Three years after coming out of the coma and starting a new life, Dani started doing more and more with the X-Men. She was going out on missions with them, even though Professor Xavier had been concerned about someone catching sight of her and alerting the MLF that she was alive. Avoiding an all out war between the MLF and Magneto’s people hinged on Dani being safe and if the MLF spotted her in public, that safety would be put at risk.

Kitty and Tamsin solved part of that dilemma by getting her a new costume created that included a mask. They hadn’t decided on a code name for her, yet, so when they were out on a mission she was just called Mama. Some of the others in the team thought it was funny, but few outside the close friends Dani had made dared to say anything about it. One thing that had been quickly established was that Dani would fly into a rage to rival Logan’s if someone looked like they were a threat to her new family – especially any of the kids that had somehow become hers.

Xavier and the other telepaths said that it was a residual effect in Dani’s mind that had carried over from the attack on her. Something in her mind had been triggered to rise up when someone she loved was threatened or attacked. Rachel thought it might be her subconscious trying to prevent an attack on someone she cared about because of what she had gone through. Jean thought it was a way for Dani to try to atone for the harm she herself had caused when she was a member of the Brotherhood and later a leading member of the MLF. Xavier thought it might be a new side effect of her powers since they were still learning everything about them and how Dani could affect people when she wanted to. Betsy didn’t care what caused it. She thought the others should just leave Dani alone and quit trying to analyze everything she did.

There were many reasons that Dani had started to see Betsy as a type of big sister to her. There was also something about her that reminded her of her lost friends, Tempo and Locus. She missed them so much, but the closeness she had developed with Tamsin, Kitty, and the others helped to ease that a little bit. She understood why they had to believe she was dead, but she hated the idea that she had caused them pain.

It didn’t matter that the choice had been taken away from her when Reaper and the others had attacked her and left her to die. As long as her long time best friends were still working for the MLF, Dani had to stay dead to them.

However, death took on a whole new meaning when the X-Men and several other mutants were kidnapped to Asgard and the Valkyries ended up recognizing Dani as one of their own.

It started when one of their winged stallions was rescued by Dani and then he attached himself to her. The women she met explained that it meant she was his rider and she was a Valkyrie -- a chooser of the slain who claims the spirits of fallen warriors to take to Valhalla.

Dani wasn’t sure how to take it and didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

Despite feeling like she belonged among the other Valkyries and with the stallion, Brightwind, she couldn’t turn her back on her friends that had given her a chance to live again. She spent a great deal of time in the wilderness while she and the X-Men were in Asgard. She knew that there would come a time where she needed to make a choice with who she was.

When the fight for the freedom of Asgard was completed and the mutants were returned to their homes, Dani went back to Earth with the rest of them. As much as she had come to love her new friends, she belonged with the X-Men right now.

To her surprise – and the surprise of the rest of the X-Men , Brightwind came home with her. Apparently, he had chosen her to be his bonded rider and a Valkyrie. He would stay with her until she was ready to return to her place in Asgard.

It was her experiences in Asgard and with Brightwind that led Tamsin to select Dani’s new codename among the X-Men.

Valkyrie.

She would learn later just how much had changed for her when Brightwind chose her to be his rider.


	13. Chapter 13

Mikhail had worked for the Brotherhood several times now over the past three and a half years. Which meant several times meeting with his contacts in the same place over the years.

Which meant several times meeting with Wanda Maximoff in the same place over the years. If he didn't know better, he'd think Magneto was torturing him somehow. He certainly wouldn't put it past the man, even if it was a less sophisticated game than the older man usually played.

And yep, there she was again. Mikhail suppressed a groan as he approached the table. "Hello, Wanda. You're looking well."

"As are you," Wanda said, her voice nearly a purr as she looked Mikhail up and down appreciatively. It was always _so_ nice to see him.

"Thanks," he said dryly. "I don't have a lot of time, so let's make this short."

"Oh, Mikhail, what's the rush?" Wanda pouted cutely at him -- or it would've been cutely if there wasn't a hint of madness in her eyes. "Surely you have time to stand around and chat a bit with an old friend."

"Always," he agreed pleasantly. "Find me an old friend and I'll go talk to them."

The cute melted from Wanda's expression, leaving her face cold and impassive. She didn't take well to rejection, especially from her sister's leavings.

She opened her purse and pulled out an envelope, holding it out to Mikhail. "Here," she said, her voice dripping with disdain now. "Your money."

"Now the details," Mikhail said, tucking the envelope in his pocket. The Brotherhood had learned that paying him first was well worth it.

Wanda relayed the details in a detached, professional voice; for all her instabilities and quirks, she was damn good at what she did and she never settled for anything less than her absolute best.

Of course, it was Mikhail's private opinion that Wanda pushed herself to be that good in the hopes of winning her father's approval. Dani had once told him that Wanda had confided in her that she never felt good enough for Magneto. This was a confidence that Mikhail had never betrayed and would never betray. For one thing, Dani had trusted him enough to let him know her sister's most valuable secret. He wouldn't violate that trust, even with Dani gone.

For another, Wanda would kill him without ruining her perfectly manicured nails if she knew.

And Mikhail was in the habit of staying alive.

 

It was three months after they came back from Asgard that Dani realized how her powers had changed since their trip.

The first time she got an example of this, it scared the hell out of her. She was walking into a park when she saw a group of teenage kids playing on the basketball court. She blinked and she suddenly saw images of fire over the students’ heads. Her vision blurred and she felt herself collapse onto the grass.

When she opened her eyes again, she was in the med lab at the mansion and her friends were with her.  
“Hey, Mama,” Tamsin said gently. “Welcome back.”

Dani was confused. She looked around the room at everyone. “What happened?”

“Now, see, that’s what we hoped you would be able to tell us,” Logan responded. “The paramedics said that they found you unconscious in the park.”

“Unconscious…” Dani’s eyes widened. “Oh God, those kids. I saw something.”

Kitty reached for her hand. “Easy, Mama. Talk to us.”

“I was walking in the park and I saw some kids playing on the basketball court. All of a sudden I saw an image of fire over their heads.”

“Images of fire?” Rachel asked.

Dani nodded. “There was a group of them and they’re going to die.”

“Dani,” Logan asked. “How do you know that’s what you saw?”

“Because I felt it,” Dani said slowly. “I knew something had changed since we came back from Asgard. Before we left, Mist, one of the Valkryie I met there, said that I was an acolyte of death. I didn’t understand…”

Her voice trailed off when she saw Professor Xavier enter the room. She could tell from his face that something very bad had happened. She knew even before he spoke.

“They’re dead, aren’t they, Professor?”

He looked startled. “How did you know someone died, Dani?”

“Come on, Charlie,” Logan prodded. “What’s wrong?”

“A bomb exploded in a downtown sports center and seven teenagers were killed.” Charles said quietly. “No one knows who planted the bomb, but I’m sending Jean and Scott to see if they can find out anything.”

Logan looked back at Dani. “Acolyte of Death, huh?”

 

Mikhail took jobs as often as he could manage it -- anything to keep away those days where remembering Dani, even after four years, was just too damn much. But there was one day out of each year that he refused to work on.

The anniversary of her death.

This was the fourth anniversary, and it was the first where he wasn't spending it completely blind stinking drunk. He'd finally reached the point where he no longer felt the overwhelming need to drink in order to keep the memories and the pain away. The desire, yeah, a little. But it was no longer overwhelming need, and he supposed it was a step in the right direction.

But it wasn't a step he was entirely happy about. It was a step he wished with everything in him that he'd never needed to end up making.

He supposed there was a part of him, a very large part, that was never going to get over Dani. It was that same part that had him so committed to her, even after four years.

Not for Wanda's lack of trying, but even that had stopped by now. Mikhail wasn't sure if she'd finally gotten the message or if she'd just gotten bored and turned her attentions to someone else. And really, as long as she wasn't bothering him any longer, he didn't much care which it was.

He sighed, slumped back on his couch, and looked down at the picture he held in his hand. It was one of the few he had of himself and Dani together. One of the few where they looked like a normal happy couple instead of teammates, at least. She was looking at him adoringly and he was returning the look in kind. He remembered exactly when it'd been taken -- it was one of the last pictures he had of her. Not exactly the last, but one of them.

For that reason alone it was one of his most prized possessions, though admittedly it wasn't very difficult for something to be one of his prized possessions -- he didn't have much so everything was by definition important to him.

Though it would never be as important as Dani herself had been.

He would give anything to have her back.

 

It was five years to the day that the X-Men had saved Dani’s life and she was sitting on Brightwind’s back as she thought about the things that had happened to her in all of that time. She ran her hands aimlessly through his mane, chewing on her bottom lip.

The pain of being turned on by the MLF had gradually faded. With the exception of Mikhail, that hadn’t been her team.

"Mama?" Tamsin's voice was soft as she approached.

Dani hastily wiped tears away from her face before turning to look at the girl approaching her.

"Hey, Tam. Everything all right?"

"We're good to go," Tamsin said with a nod. "You?"

She nodded. "I just came out here for some time to think before it was time to go."

"Ah, that'd explain the thinky face," Tamsin said, reaching up to run a hand along Brightwind's nose lightly. "Is Mama bein' thinky, Brightwind?"

The horse made a huffing sound and shook his head up and down. Dani shook her head. "Traitor." She smiled softly. "It's been five years, today."

"Five of the best years I've had," Tamsin said loyally. Dani was one of her best friends, after all. "But... it's hard, isn't it? Thinking about what happened?"

"I've loved being here and knowing you guys. I've loved having this family and I would do anything to protect it." She cleared her throat and nodded. When she spoke, her voice came out slightly husky because she had been fighting tears earlier. "I'll never be the same physically again because of what they did to me, Tam. I have limitations with my body that I've never had before and it's all because of a betrayal by people that were supposed to be on my team. But even all of that, thinking of all I've lost because of what they did, that's not what hurts the worst."

"He is," Tamsin guessed, not really having to guess at all. Her empathy told her clear enough -- and she wasn't even trying for a read. But trying would have been another kind of betrayal.

Dani nodded, wiping her eyes. "It still hurts after all of this time that he not only let them do it, he ordered it. I thought he loved me, you know? He stayed with me even knowing who my father was and what he would do if anything hurt me in a relationship that hurt me. It wasn't months we were together, Tam, it was years. What was the point of him pretending to love me for all of that time? I would have fucked him even if he didn't say he loved me."

"He's a bastard." Tamsin's voice was low and angry. "If I ever see him, I'll kill him." Not that it'd be easy, but dammit, she wasn't thinking about things like that at the moment.

"I'd never been in love before, Tam. He made me feel like I was the most important person in the world to him." She swallowed, trying to keep her emotions under control. But because it was Tam, she probably could feel pain just radiating off of Dani. "I've dealt with the fact that the team betrayed me. None of them were _my_ team. They were all substitute fill ins because members of my real team had issues that day -- nothing on purpose or planned, I know that. But the ones I was working with that day, well, part of the attack on me is my fault. I didn't treat them with caution and suspicion like I would normally do when having to work with a team of unknowns." She shook her head. "But Concussion... he was _mine_ , or so I had thought."

Tamsin growled softly. "He shouldn't have done it. He shouldn't have tried to get you out of the way like that. I'd like to know _why_ he did it. He had to have had some kind of motivation." Not that she'd _like_ the motivation, but still. She wanted to know how anybody could hurt the person they loved like that.

"He said that they had been right in that sleeping with his second was weak," Dani said, her hand moving through Brightwind's mane again. "I was his second in command, Tam. There was no better team than ours. I was loyal, I was protective, and I loved him. Being lovers only made us work that much better together because we just knew each other." She leaned forward to touch her forehead to Brightwind's neck. "At least I thought we did. But he ordered our substitute team to _kill_ me and I still don't understand why he wanted me dead."

"It doesn't make any sense," Tamsin said. "Looking at everything you've told me about the kind of man you thought he was... that Mikhail wouldn't do something like that. Was he really _that_ good a liar?"

Dani's shoulders hunched and then she nodded her head miserably. "He was really good at his job -- and apparently I was just part of the job."

"Then it's his loss and our gain."

Dani turned to look at Tamsin, tears in her eyes. "You and Kitty saved my life and I can't ever repay that -- even if I didn't want to survive for a little while there."

"You were hurt and in pain -- and not just because of your injuries," Tamsin said, patting Dani's hand. "Completely understandable."

"He was my first."

"Your... oh. Oh, Mama."

She shrugged, turning back running her hands along Brightwind. "I wanted to die and sometimes I'm still surprised that I didn't. Not that I want to, now," she assured her. "I have a family I love and good friends. And... well, if the MLF hadn't tried to kill me, I wouldn't have been there to help you guys in Asgard and wouldn't have found out that I was a Valkyrie."

"It was a long hard road to find who you are and where you belong," Tamsin said. "It's a road most of us are on, too. But we're on it together."

"We're definitely on this one together," Dani agreed. "Just sometimes..." She sighed, her eyes getting a far away look.

"Sometimes you just miss him," Tamsin guessed. "The way things were with him before it all happened."

"And I want to ask him why." She sighed. "But that's not likely to happen. They think I'm dead and we have to keep it that way."

"I wish it could happen," Tamsin said. "For your sake. Just so you could get some answers."

"I wish I could tell Locus and Tempo, but my father and Xavier were right. As long as the MLF think I'm dead, it's safer for me. I've never been the one to take the safer way out of something, but I have you guys to think about now."

"Someday it'll work out," Tamsin said. "Somehow." It would work out if she had to _make_ it work out.

Dani gave her a weak smile. "That part of my life is over, Tam. Moonstar is dead and she'll have to stay dead if I don't want my girls to wear even bigger targets on their heads." She sighed and ran her hand along Brightwind's neck. "Moonstar is dead. Let's hope Valkyrie lives a bit longer."

"She will," Tamsin said with more confidence. "We won't let anything change that. Laura will fry anybody who tries hurting you."

"Tam, Laura will set someone on fire if she thinks they're looking at one of us wrong."

Tamsin couldn't help chuckling softly. "Okay, true."

"We're the most protective and dysfunctional family I've ever known and I love every bit of it."

"Good," Tamsin said, suddenly serious again. "Because you deserve a family you can be happy with."

"I have you guys and I thank the gods every day that I do, Tam. Really."

"And I thank God just as much that I have you."

Dani gave her a small smile. "Come on, we should go back in before Kitty sends out a search party for us."

"Yeah, you're probably right." Tamsin patted Brightwind's side. "Sorry, boy. Attention time's over."


	14. Chapter 14

The fight was chaos of the most uncontrolled kind. There was pockets of fighting all over. Mikhail fired off a concussive blast, diving to the side to avoid retaliatory gunfire from Colt.

The most intense side fight was Pyro and Flashover. The girl caught every ball of fire Pyro sent her way and extinguished it, laughing gleefully.

"Damn it, don't taunt him!" Colt yelled. "It'll only set him off!"

Mikhail heard Colt's words and sure enough, Pyro's reaction wasn't a pleasant one -- the younger man sent a powerful wave of fire at Flashover's head; Colt tackled her just in time for the fire to sail over their heads. Mikhail was surprised to see an almost stricken look flash across Pyro's face; it was gone as quickly as it'd come.

The wind started slowly whipping around them; Mikhail knew that had to be Storm. He sent a blindly-aimed blast in her direction, falling back to where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were coordinating... something or other.

"What you need to do is take out Storm and Wolverine first," Quicksilver argued. "They're the ones leading the charge; take them out and the team's weakened."

"Weakened but not broken apart," Scarlet Witch yelled over the wind. "Storm, yeah, but we need to take out that bitch Valkyrie!"

"She's not important," Mikhail tried to interject. "I think the biggest danger is Flashover. She's going to exhaust Pyro and we _need_ him. You know he's not armed to create fire forever. He's a weakness in a fight if they bring Flashover with them and you know it. You knew it going into this and you brought him anyway. Do something about her before he drops."

"Let him," Scarlet Witch said dispassionately. "We need to win. As long as he stays alive, nothing else matters. Exhaustion heals."

God, Wanda was a bitch. Mikhail shook his head. "I tell you, we need to take out Flashover first, then Storm, then Shadowcat and Colt. Valkyrie can go out last. Fit the others somewhere in between."

"What do you know?" Scarlet Witch eyed him skeptically.

"I was with the MLF for years, remember?" Mikhail met her skepticism with his own. "I _led_ a goddamn team. I was no tactical genius, that was your sister's job. But I did pick up a few things from her, and chief among those was take out the biggest danger first."

Apparently Wanda was stupid today as well as a bitch.

"Fine, then," Quicksilver said shortly. "We'll deal with Flashover. You go deal with Valkyrie. Go take her out. Her weapons are wreaking havoc on us, anyway."

At least one of the siblings was in command of their senses, Mikhail noted as he took off across the impromptu battlefield. He'd been given an assignment and he was damn well going to carry it out or go down trying.

He threw himself into a forward roll, dodging more gunfire from Colt -- who he figured _had_ to be running out of bullets by now, even with the extra ammo he'd seen her pull from her pockets at several points. He shot off a blast in her direction, gratified to see it hit her and knock her several feet backwards, slamming her up against a wall.

Now he just had to get past the rest of them, since Valkyrie had parked herself in the middle of the battle and up a little higher than the rest, presumably to give her better aim. He shot a blast at her, then another, and a third. He didn't want to knock her clear off her perch, he just wanted to knock her back enough to make her come down on her own.

Because really, taking her out by knocking her off a six foot high perch was unrealistic. At best, she'd hit her head on the way down. At worst, she'd just be jarred.

And there she went, clambering down. He fired off a short, light burst just to get his point across and then took off towards her at a run. He knew it wasn't going to be an easy fight against her, but Mikhail didn't like easy fights. There was no honor in beating an opponent you could quite easily beat.

His mind had gone on autopilot, as it always did in a fight. It'd be a quick battle, he had a feeling, but it would by no means be an easy one. This was the kind of fight he did best, the kind where he was evenly matched -- or nearly evenly matched, at any rate. He was a better option against Valkyrie than some.

 

Valkyrie wasn't stupid. She recognized that she would be one of the people the Brotherhood would see as the biggest threat in this battle. There was a reason that she had been in the middle of the combat and then on higher ground. It was easier to power her arrows and fire them from her bow if she was a little higher up than the rest of the battle. She could decide what to charge her arrows with and fire them before anyone realized they'd even been hit. It also gave her a vantage point to see how the rest of the battle was going and to yell suggestions through the communicators.

Once a tactician, always a tactician. Her earlier training always came in handy during skirmishes like this.

This wasn't her first fight against the Brotherhood, but it was damn well the first one she had been involved in where both Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were directing the attack. From the way things were going, they shouldn't have both tried to be the tacticians. In a battle like this, you needed one tactical person, one leader and the rest there to make sure the plan was carried out.

That was clearly something the Brotherhood were lacking and something she planned on taking full advantage of. She scrambled up onto a broken wall and tapped her headset. "Shadowcat! I have the chip they were looking for."

"Good going, Valkyrie. I'm on my way to --" The blast shaking her perch cut off whatever it was Kitty was going to say. Oh, she knew who that was. She had seen him use those blasts on other people before, after all.

"Never mind, Shadowcat. I'll hold onto it as I have a new situation to deal with. You get to Colt and Flashover!"

"Val --"

"I've got this. You get those two away from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver. Let Storm and Wolverine work offense while you work defense! Tell Colt she can deal with Pyro at another time."

She tapped off her communicator and scrambled down off of her perch to get on more even, steadier ground. By the time her attacker came around the ledge, he was met by the tip of Valkyrie's spear scraping alongside the front of his shoulder as she used the momentum to flip over him and kick at the back of his knees.

She crouched for a moment, waiting for him to get his equilibrium again. Then, instead, she straightened her stance and got to her feet as she kept a careful eye on him, She was glad that nothing could be seen of her through her full face mask because the last thing she needed was for the man she was fighting to recognize her and send up the alert. She knew she wasn't in real danger from Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, they wouldn't dare risk their father's wrath if they harmed her.

However, Concussion was another matter entirely, The two of them had been intimate and inseparable for years and even if no one else would recognize her face five years later, he _would_. That was something that neither she nor the X-Men could afford to deal with right now -- not when they needed this chip to prove voter fraud over the newest attempt to get the Mutant Registration Act passed. So the mask stayed on and she made sure that if she had to speak, she used the voice distorter that Hank had affixed to the insides of her costumes and uniforms.

These days, she rarely left the grounds of the Institute without wearing some kind of mask or using another one of Hank's gadgets to disguise herself. They helped and they made her feel less exposed when she left the Institute.

She waited for Concussion to face her, twirling the spear in her hands lightly. True, she could have just stabbed him in the back with the spear and left him to deal with psionic ramifications in that manner, but she was a different person than she had been before. Even if she had new weapons and new powers, she wouldn't attack someone's back. The X-Men had taught her too well for that.

Even if there was still a lot of unresolved anger and pain in her where he was concerned.

And so she waited for him to turn around, carefully out of his reach, balancing on the balls of her feet in case he was stupid and tried to take her out with a blast at such a close range.

She'd seen him do it before, but she was almost counting on him not doing that. The fact that they sent him after her meant that they thought she was the bigger threat in this fight. If it had been any other time, she might have found that thought amusing. Right now, though, she didn't have room in her mind for amusing.

Right now, she needed to put him on his ass so that her team could get away with what they had come for.

Personal satisfaction would have to wait until a later date, she understood that. She could almost hear Wolverine barking that reminder at her. He didn't need to worry, though, not right now. She would do what she needed to do and no more than that.

She had a job to do and a team to protect.

Mikhail spun around, bringing his hands up. He could fire easily from any position, but he wasn't going to underestimate Valkyrie.

Valkyrie didn't say a word to him, just watched him, her stance appearing to be relaxed.

He took a couple steps back, hands still staying up. She might've appeared relaxed, but that was quite probably deceptive. Valkyrie knew what she was doing, he knew from everything he'd heard about her.

She still didn't speak, just twirling her spear in her hands as she watched him carefully. She wondered if his first attack was going to be with hands or feet,

He moved suddenly, sending a blast over her head at the same time he moved in with a kick.

She let the kick connect, using his foot to pivot so that she could swing the butt of the spear at his back.

The spear hit the small of Mikhail's back, making him stumble.

She spun around, trying to sweep his legs out from under him and take him to the ground.

Mikhail was too quick for her, though, and he regained his balance, quickly backing away a few steps.

If he could have seen her face, she would have given him a small smile. Instead, she shrugged slightly. Being in a serious fight with Mikhail was a hell of a lot different than she remembered sparring and training with him to be.

And in a serious fight, he was much more deadly -- and vicious. That was nothing new, though; she'd certainly seen that side of him more than once.

She didn't say anything, just moved her spear from hand to hand as she watched to see what his next move was going to be. She was too close to him for his powers not to screw him up, too, but she wasn't going to take any chances on that and she started sending power into one of her hands without moving it.

Mikhail balanced a ball-shaped charge on his open palm. It was risky, something he'd only started learning how to do after Dani's death, but if there was a time to take a risk, it was now. He had to salvage this mess of a mission somehow. And make a mental note not to work with the Brotherhood ever again if it was going to involve Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver on the same mission. If they'd let _him_ plan, this would've been over and they'd have won.

"I wouldn't," Valkyrie warned in a husky voice. "You won't like the consequences." She was pretty sure she could bring up the psionic shield in her hand before the ball of power could hit her. Pretty sure. She also started charging up the spear she held. If he wanted to play, she was willing to play.

"I've been hurt worse," he said with a shrug, taking a mental deep breath before whipping the charge at her.

Valkyrie's hand came up and in it was her power, shaped into a perfect shield that swung the blast back at Concussion. She had warned him not to do that, after all.

The blast hit Mikhail and knocked him back, flat on his ass. He should have expected that, he noted as he got to his feet, a little surprised that she was actually giving him time to get up.

She did give him time, but only so she could back off and send a blast of power at the rocks around them so that she could clamor up on them. She had seen a problem and that meant she had to stop Concussion long enough to get to where Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver had Flashover pinned down.

"Sorry to cut this short," she said in that husky tone. "But I've got to go. I'm sure that we'll fight again and I'll get to kick your ass in a much better situation." She let out a shrill whistle at the same time that images started coming to life around Concussion. Figuring out what was real and what was an illusion would give her enough time to get to Flashover.

Figuring out some of it was easy, but some of the images were much harder to figure out. It was that hesitation that gave her time to move.

Flashover screamed, putting her rage into her fire and trying to direct it at Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver, both of whom just laughed at her.

Valkyrie pivoted and ran towards Flashover's scream, her powered spear knocking Scarlet Witch back just enough for Brightwind to land and for Flashover to scramble onto the winged horse's back. As Valkyrie leaped onto her horse in front of her, an attack from Quicksilver knocked her head back, causing a rip in her face mask. Valkyrie's head jerked towards Concussion's line of sight as Brightwind started to lift off the ground. The jagged tear in the face mask allowed Concussion to see a cheekbone, part of an eye, and bronze skin.

He knew those features, though, knew them well. Five years had done nothing to erase the memory of those features.

But how was it possible? She was supposed to be dead. All he could do was stare in shock.

As Brightwind rose up out of range, Valkyrie brought her bow to lay over his neck. She took only a moment to aim and then an arrow embedded itself in the dirt between Concussion's boots, crackling with the red and purple power that was tinged with black. She had learned more control over her powers and had learned to do so many new things -- including the message she was now sending to him. Once that was done, Valkyrie checked the battlefield to make sure all of her people had gotten to safety. Then, nodding once, she hung her bow across her back and took off on her winged stallion without looking back at him.

Mikhail was oblivious to everything around him. The yelling, the fighting, all of it was only vaguely registering to any part of his brain at all. He was too busy focusing on the fact that Dani wasn't dead.

She wasn't dead.

He had a job to finish doing, and he was going to do it, but as he shook his head to clear it all he could think was that if she was alive, then maybe there was hope for them. Not that they could reunite, because clearly she thought he was with the Brotherhood and she was with the X-Men, but that there could be an actual resolution to things.

But only time would tell.


End file.
